Jake “the Snake” Roberts is often cited as having had the best in-ring psychology of all-time. He’s now passing down that knowledge to students at the Snake Pit Wrestling Academy.

“Wrestling came naturally to me,” Roberts said to Sports Illustrated recently. “Whenever I thought about something, I’d think, ‘There is only one way to do that.’ There was no question about doing this or doing that. Hell no. Now that got me in trouble a couple of times, because I spoke my voice, but I always believed that if you’re going to do it, you do it right.”

According to Jake, wrestling today needs more psychology and less big bumps and high-spots.

“That’s what I don’t get about the young talent today,” Roberts continued. “So many matches are the same. Don’t they get bored? It’s ridiculous what they waste, and they don’t even know they’re wasting it. I blame that on the new way of wrestling; if you come up now, you can be in the main event within a year. In my day, you had to learn. We had the territories that forced us to constantly grow and change.”

Another difference between wrestling in his day and today Roberts notes is the psychology behind moves.

“I had six moves,” Roberts said. “I knew when to do them and I did them absolutely perfectly, and people believed them. Teaching this class, I’m going to make people think differently. The truth is in what you’ve done and where you’ve been, and there are not many people who have done more than I have.”

Roberts would continue to say that wrestling fans have given him everything he has in his life.

“Without the fans, you have no wrestling,” he said. “Without the fans, I’d have had no life. The fans have given me more than I can ever give them. They showed me that all my years of sacrificing meant something, and I do appreciate it.”