Roberts puts on drunken display at independent show

PROVIDED

"Pushing the Envelope: The Story of a Hired Gun in Iraq."

PROVIDED

Jake "The Snake" Roberts self-destructed at show.

Jake "The Snake" Roberts, who earlier this year thanked Vince McMahon for saving his life, publicly self-destructed last weekend at an independent wrestling show in Ohio.

Disturbing footage surfaced last week on a number of online sites showing a rambling, incoherent Roberts implode in front of an audience that had come out, in large part, to see a former WWE legend.

What they saw instead was something entirely different.

The TMZ celebrity gossip site reported that the troubled wrestler, who has been plagued over the years by drug and alcohol abuse, was found passed out backstage moments before he was scheduled to perform. Roberts allegedly became agitated when woken up and asked for an eight ball. Nearly two dozen empty small bottles of vodka reportedly were found next to his gear.

Roberts, 53, cut a profanity-laced promo before stumbling through a match in which he was clearly unable to perform and didn't sell a series of punches from opponent J.T. Lightning. The frustrated wrestler called for a quick finish due to Roberts' inebriated state, grabbed a mic after the match and cut a profanity-laced promo of his own on Roberts.

Things only got worse when the overweight, out-of-shape Roberts exposed himself to the booing crowd, which included a number of children, and later reportedly broke his hand punching a wall backstage before running into the street crying. An ambulance and police were called to the scene, but Roberts, who refused medical treatment, was not arrested.

Roberts later claimed the incident was due to a drink being spiked the day of the match, although Jerry Mires, who works for the promotion as J-Rocc, said Roberts "drank himself stupid."

Roberts, known for bringing large snakes to the ring, was one of wrestling's biggest stars during the late '80s, but has been on a downward spiral for the past two decades, largely due to drug abuse. Last weekend was far from the wrestler's first embarrassing public appearance.

Roberts also made headlines during the 1999 Heroes of Wrestling pay-per-view when he showed up intoxicated and performed lewd acts in the ring.

Roberts was placed in a 14-week voluntary rehab program late last year. He credited the program, and WWE owner McMahon, with saving his life.

--"Pushing the Envelope: The Story of a Hired Gun in Iraq" is a provocative tale of a former pro wrestler who recently spent 13 months in that war-torn country as a member of a special U.S. police force. The wrestler, who has local roots and worked for Jim Crockett Promotions during the early '80s, wrote the book under the pseudonym "JT Storm" for security reasons.

The 240-page book is an entertaining read and offers one man's inside look at a culture and conflict that goes well beyond the sound bytes and images we see on our TV screens.

"It's worse than people realize and people see on TV," he says, adding "there's only so much I could put in the book for security reasons."

"It's not anything like what you've read ... it's a big gang war," he adds. "You don't know who's on whose side — from day to day or from hour to hour. It's very chaotic. Within five seconds, families all over the world can be changed. You'll see things you've never seen before. You have to be there to really grasp it. You have to do what you have to do to make it through another day."

The author's background covers much more than wrestling. "Storm" spent 17 years in law enforcement, and his resume includes criminal profiler, interrogator specialist, certified fire and explosion investigator, intelligence analyst, counter terrorism and hate crime investigator, gang investigator and former military.

Storm, who worked for the State Department, was embedded with the military and worked hand-in-hand with them. His base of operations was the insurgent hotbed of Tikrit. His primary duty was to train, advise and mentor the Iraqi police, security and forces, enabling them to be able to take care of themselves and their own people.

The military force in Iraq, he says, is overworked, undertrained, understaffed and underfunded.

"There's a lot of people who shouldn't be there in the first place," he says. "That is not a training ground. There's no do-overs or 'let's try it again.' You get one shot at it."

Storm says he tried to make the book as informative and entertaining as possible.

"I just wanted to give a truthful, factional reality of what was going on in the war on terror. This is not your daddy's army or your granddaddy's army. There's no draft; it's all volunteer. No matter what the circumstances are, whatever job they're in, they should be regarded as heroes for just being over there in the first place."

"Pushing the Envelope" lists at $15.99 for paperback and $19.99 for hardcover.