During a recent interview with ESPN, Jake Hager aka Jack Swagger discussed his move into mixed martial arts as well as the fact he’s still juggling pro wrestling.
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On discovering MMA:
“When I was leaving college, getting ready to graduate with a degree in finance, I had job interviews for months and months — and nothing really was moving like a real opportunity. Meanwhile, a lot of my wrestling teammates at Oklahoma had started getting into MMA training. They would, you know, after the season was over they were having a lot of jiu-jitsu in the room, and even [going] as far as having striking practices in the wrestling room. It was definitely gaining popularity there. This is ’06. This is when Iceman and Tito were making waves and really putting MMA on the map. My junior and senior year in college is when I first realized what MMA is and really started liking it,” said Hager. “I went the other route — I went into the entertainment field and started wrestling professionally, and I did that for about 11 years.”
On planning the transition:
“Halfway through [my time in WWE], one of my college teammates, Danny Rubenstein, became a MMA manager and really started getting busy,” said Hager. “I live in Tampa, Florida, and one of my other college roommates named Matt Grice was fighting for another company, and it was here in Tampa, so we got to go to the fights, my wife and I.”
“Since then, we have been planning when we were going to go into it. For us it wasn’t if we were going to do it, it was a matter of time because we felt like I belong in this world and that I could do very well at it,” said Hager. “It was about five years of working out contract situations with the WWE and trying to fight father time at the same time, because I know I’m late to the party. Luckily for me I’m a late bloomer, so I still got a lot of growing to do.”
On pro wrestling and WWE:
“Saturday and Sunday I go and wrestle professionally still on the weekends — that’s what pays the bills. There’s a lot of times when I’m banging my head against a wall, I’m wondering what am I doing, [but] there’s been a lot of great breakthroughs and platforms.
“It’s just been so much fun to really go from a company where I didn’t have a lot of control over my future to being directly in control of my future and my hard work,” said Hager, “And that’s been the most gratifying part about it, getting to choose who I work with.”
