Jake Hager recently spoke with Wrestlezone’s Kevin Kellam ahead of his Bellator fight in Chicago this weekend. Hager, the former Jack Swagger, will face off with TJ Jones on Saturday night’s card.
Hager spoke about his transition from WWE wrestling to mixed martial arts, saying he’s familiar with it, but it is still difficult since combat sports are more than just wrestling skills:
“It’s something that I’m very familiar with, it’s just something that I hadn’t done in about twelve years since I was with [WWE]. The part about getting back in there and knocking the rust off, that’s very hard. MMA is very difficult; you can’t just be good at wrestling. You need striking, kickboxing, jiu-jitsu and countless other things. It’s a lot to master, so it can be overwhelming at times, but that’s why you have great coaches like Josh [Rafferty], Rob Radford, to help you through the transition, and for me, it feels very natural. I was never the best athlete, but I knew how to be coached and I knew how to work hard at it. It was somewhat seamless for me. It seemed very easy in that this is where I’m supposed to be.”
Hager also said his second fight camp was much tougher than the first due to feeling like he’s defending a championship. Hager said he knows he didn’t win a title, but he takes it that serious because being complacent opens up the possibility of making a mistake:
“I definitely had a harder camp with this one. It’s an upgrade in opponent, but I had a harder camp because if you think about it like you go out and win a NBA championship, it’s harder to defend your championship. Now, I didn’t win a championship with that fight [against JW Kizer], but I look at it that way. I don’t want to let my foot off of the gas. I don’t want to take my foot off of his throat for a second because that’s where mistakes happen and someone who is not as good as you can step in and beat you. I wanted to put as much focus on this camp as I did on my first camp merely for the fact that I am serious about this and I want to be successful at it. It needs to be that type of intensity or you need to do something else.”
In regards to his mindset walking into the cage this Saturday, Hager’s message was simple:
“I have permission to hurt this guy. That is my 100% motivation. I go out there and force my will; it makes my brand better, it makes my family better, it makes my team better, and that’s what I’m going to do.”
Jake Hager faces off with TJ Jones at Bellator 221 on Saturday, May 11th at the Allstate Arena in Chicago, Illinois. Check out the full interview below:
