[MUSIC PLAYING]
The guitar that Honky Tonk Man used
to hit Jake Roberts over the head
is one of the items we need to find to tell the story of Jake.
In that moment in time, it wasn't just an in-ring feud,
that was a real-life feud, and Jake
and Honky still don't want anything
to do with one another.
AJ!
Come on in!
All right, cool.
Come on in, man.
Good to see you.
Well, this is it.
You know, I have a little home in Sarasota,
but this is closer to the airport.
I had a beach bar in Daytona Beach.
Uh-huh.
Look at this-- reserved parking for the "Mouth
of South" Jimmy Hart.
Hey, baby, it's me!
The Mouth of the South, Jimmy Hart,
the greatest Intercontinental Champion of all time
is the Honky Tonk Man, and who managed him?
Me!
Honky was great.
When you watched Honky Tonk in the ring,
he's got the outfit on, he's got the guitar, he's got this,
he's got the music and the showmanship,
and that's what made him so special.
I actually am hoping that you have the guitar
that he used to break over Jake the Snake's back.
Jake Roberts was one of the best
talkers and interviewers in the business,
and he hosted the Snake Pit.
My next guest is probably one of the biggest men
to ever step into the ring.
The Snake Pit was Jake the Snake's own interview set.
These interviews sets are so important
in professional wrestling, because it's an opportunity
to progress storylines like he's used many times in his buildups
to WrestleMania and other major events.
Jake didn't have an opponent for WrestleMania III
until the Honky Tonk Man and Jimmy
Hart walked into the Snake Pit.
Huh?
Honky Tonk Man.
What kind of name is that?
You're not afraid of snakes, are you?
Jake was never a cartoon.
Even though you could go, like, well, the guy that carried
the snake in a bag and the whole thing, like,
it lends itself to being the full-on cartoon.
He wasn't.
Honky Tonk Man is every bit the cartoon professional wrestler
that you can be.
My mama named me the Honky Tonk Man
because I was born on a pool table
at Joe's Bar & Grill in Memphis, Tennessee!
Nobody wanted to cheer the Honky Tonk Man,
because there's nothing about him to cheer.
He thinks he's great.
He thinks he's better than you.
Shut your filthy mouth!
People are like, I'm like Jake,
and you wanted to see him get in the head of the Honky Tonk Man.
Honky's a lazy performer, man.
He just wants to do his gimmick, and he doesn't want to go
out there and really go for it.
And, you know, don't-- don't mess with my hair!
You know, really?
Ah!
You two guys are too much, you know that?
But he gets the crowd going, man.
He gets the crowd going, because he's that guy, you know?
And there were some bad stuff that happened there.
You know what I mean.
You made an idiot of yourself.
[BOOING]
I don't know how, but he missed my back.
He hit me in the head.
It was a pretty vicious shot, and it caused some damage.
What was a story between these two very opposing characters
became very personal.
Vince McMahon saw that and realized
he had to put Honky Tonk Man and Jake the Snake
against each other at WrestleMania III,
and it worked.
If you watch the film, you'll see him hit me repeatedly
as hard as he frigging could with that guitar
across my back, and he still couldn't
bust that son of a bitch.
So Jake has actually gone on record many times
saying that the reason he went down his downward spiral
is because he got hit by this guitar.
Listen, he might have got his fingernail broke when
he got hit, and that was it.
Kayfabe is the unspoken about world
of professional wrestling.
It's the ideal that wrestling is 100% real and legit.
I genuinely believe that Jimmy Hart still
says that Jake was milking the guitar smash because he's
living in kayfabe, brother.
He's playing the role of Jimmy Hart Honky Tonk Man's manager,
and he's going to play that role until the day
he kicks the bucket.
Now-- oh, here's something kind of special.
One of my original keyboard ties.
Wow.
Oh, man, that's cool.
Keyboard tie-- these are hard to find.
Yeah, they are.
They were back in the day.
So was this the same tie you wore in the Snake Pit promo
with Jake the Snake?
Same tie.
I'd like to have the jacket back again.
I don't know where the dadgum jacket is.
Yeah, I do like the musical notes.
Yeah, it's great, too.
But don't forget, our goal right now is trying
to find out the magic guitar.
Yes, for sure.
OK?
And I've got a friend that's got a music store.
Through the years I've let him keep some of my megaphones,
some of my memorabilia.
He's got guitars, he's got amps, he's
got rock and roll t-shirts.
Does he have THE guitar though?
I don't know.
Let's go check it out.
All right, cool.
All right, baby, are you in?
I'm in.
AJ, this is my place, man.
Look, vintage vinyl, they got unbelievable merchandise here.
I think they got my t-shirts here, too, man.
Come on in.
This is cool.
Dave!
How you doing, baby?
How you doing, man?
Good to see you. - Good to see you.
Hey, look, where do you have all my memorabilia that I've
been shipping off and on?
You can check the rooms over there.
In the back back here?
All right, AJ, come on.
We got some work to do, baby!
Guitar's got to be in some of these cases back here.
Uh-oh!
Nothing here.
There's a guitar case down there.
This is awfully heavy though.
Oh, here we go.
Nada.
Oh, my gosh.
Nothing in there.
That's an air guitar.
He said an air guitar!
[LAUGHS]
Oh, let me see.
Oh, man, hold it.
AJ!
Wow!
Hello!
Oh, my god, be careful.
This--
Wow!
Oh!
But see, here's the thing--
I can't tell if this is what's in the Snake Pit with Jake
Roberts, or if it was one of the other 50 wrestlers
that we hit over the head that year.
Back in his heyday, if you were working
with Honky Tonk Man, you knew you were
going to get hit with a guitar.
Oh!
Oh, no!
From behind!
Ooh!
Whoa!
But the guitars themselves were made in a way
to not try to injure the performer taking the shot.
I'd loosen the strings at night, take the chisel,
and knock these little wooden things
out that held it together.
Feel how heavy that is compared to how this one is.
Feel it.
Yeah.
Because, see, we had--
This is much lighter.
--and then we had, like--
So you guys hit Jake the Snake with one of these?
No, with one of these.
Oh, OK.
Jake's problem is, he doesn't think that Honky
Tonk Man did that for him.
In fact, he thinks that Honky Tonk Man
hit him with a real guitar, which caused
a real injury and real beef.
Oh, my [BLEEP]!
Pause this when he hits him?
Look, see, this guitar held up pretty well in the front.
This guitar is completely blown out in the front.
So you can see all the way through this.
Yep, yep, you're right.
Oh see this right here, the coloration is different.
These are both, like, the same color.
This is, like, a more amber wood,
with the head is more like blackish compared to brown.
This is more rounded.
This-- that one's more rounded.
This is like a hexagon type shape here.
This definitely is not the guitar from the feud
that built WrestleMania.
Although this guitar is not the one we set out to find,
it's still an original Honky Tonk Man guitar from that era.
So having something like that in the archives just
builds the collection that much more.
My question is, how would you feel about it
looking in WWE archives?
Of course, I'd love that.
Hey, look, it's all about the WWE Universe.
Don't worry about it.
It's all beautiful, man.
Well, you're beautiful, man.
It's all good, man.
I appreciate you, brother.
Hey, look, behind every champ there's always a great manager.
Am I right or wrong?
Yeah, for sure.