Jake Hager Is Done With Wrestling, Jack Swagger, Leaving AEW, WWE World Heavyweight Champ

On memories of being World Heavyweight Champion:

“The first one that comes to mind is right after WrestleMania. The next day we were in Phoenix, and I did a tease with Cena. Then I was supposed to be off, and then Tuesday morning, I get a call. I’m still in Vegas. Because I was there. I had just proposed to my ex-wife now, but anyways, I was off, and they called me to go to Las Vegas for the thing. And they had an idea. [Because they were taping SmackDown at that time?] Yeah, and they were taping it there, and then it was gonna air on Friday. I got to the building early, and I go stand outside Vince’s office. Chris is in there. Edge is in there. John Lauranaitis is in there. Vince is in there. And I can just hear Chris yelling. Because Chris and Edge just had that epic. It was a great Heavyweight Championship match at WrestleMania two nights before. Then obviously, wherever they were heading, the plans shifted, and so they got me waiting in the hallway. And I still to this day don’t know if they were just f*cking with me, because I just hear Chris yelling and yelling and yelling. He’s always professional, but I still think that at the back of my head they’re like, Hey, let’s f*ck with the rookie a little bit, put them out in the hallways. Because why was I in the meeting at all? Anyways, we get in there and Chris says, ‘You better not f*ck this up.’ Great advice, right? Took him at his word. So it all worked out great. Chris did the thing where he took his shoe off a little bit before the gut-wrench Powerbomb, and the shoe went flying into the audience. That was something that he wanted to do. So I appreciate both those guys and I had matches with Randy Orton after that. It was awesome. Worked with Big Show. So many times I worked with Big Show. I loved working with him. We did live events, I could just kind of be an idiot. I can remember this one time at Fort Myers, my uncle was in the crowd, and I really looked up to my aunt and uncle, and they had a beer, and so they were sitting front row because I got them seats. I’m selling on the outside, working the crowd, and I take their beer and I take a big swig of it and Show already knew what to do. I hop up on the apron, I got my back to him. I’m just talking to the crowd. As soon as I turn around, he just punches me and goes everywhere into the crowd, chokeslam, match is over. Sometimes that’s all you need. So I always remember that he will always give me sh*t. He’s got a bad knee, and I blew it out during that heavyweight title run. We did this certain spot 100 times, and for some reason one night when he called the spot, I just stopped short. He was like, ‘Take out my knee.’ He was expecting me to do the front chop block that I would do. I just stopped short, and I kicked him right in his knee for some reason, I don’t know, and he always gives me crap about that. I’m sorry Show, please forgive me.” 

On the rumour that John Cena refused to put him over:

“Oh yeah, he absolutely refused to do it.”

Did he tell you that?

“I was told that was what happened. Because the original plan was I was gonna beat him Monday night on Raw and not do the tease. But I’m a young guy. I’ve been there for a cup of coffee, so what are you gonna do? But I’m not the only guy he’s done that to, he did that throughout his career. I was surprised to see what happened with him and truth lately, because usually he tried to take that glory. But I feel like this time, he’s the one who said we better go with Truth and get him back here.”

On whether he has retired:

“Retired baby, Hall of Fame. I used to say before I would go through the curtain in gorilla, ‘You want me in the Hall of Fame?’ Right before the music would hit. That would just be my mentality.”

On the decision to retire:

“I had done it since 2006, dedicated a lot of my best parts of my life to the sport, roughly 17-18 years, very grateful. Had a good gig for most of that and blessed to have done it. Because pro wrestling is very tough to get into, and there’s literally hundreds of thousands of people who want to become pro wrestlers, and it’s grown every day. Like I said, I don’t watch it anymore. So I think for me, I had accomplished everything that I really cared about and wanted to move on for the longest time. I always was like, what am I going to do after pro wrestling? What trade do I have? And this is a great story, I rode with Dutch Mantell for years, and I’ll put winning the World Heavyweight Championship up there with riding with Dutch Mantell, it was that important to my career, the things that I learned, the things that he taught me, and just his f*cking funny phrases. The guy has just a way with words. He could insult you and you’re like, Thank you Dutch. But he was always like ‘Jack, whatever you do from here, you gotta use what you did in pro wrestling at the WWE, the way they use you. You gotta use that background in whatever you venture into next.’ And if you think about it like that, advice always stuck with me. Okay, I could be a salesperson because I can talk on the mic in front of live people, or I could be endearing and be vulnerable at the same time. So that could help me with something else, but pretty much with pro wrestling, you’re a professional driver. You are gone Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and then you’re home Wednesday, home 36 hours, and then you’re back out on Friday, and every single one of those days, you’re in a rental car, and you are driving town to town, making the town. So that really stuck with me, and it kind of like influenced me to go into the truck driving business, because I’m already a professional driver. I told Vince this once, the wrestling I’ll do for free, you got to pay me for the driving. And so it kind of led me to where I’m at now, and I’m excited.”

On his new trucking business and what he is hauling:

“A bunch of bullsh*t. It’s like warehouse to warehouse. Crates, palettes, it could be anything. I hauled the forklift the other day. Paper cups are in the truck right now. They’re gonna be dropped off tomorrow. I own the trucks.”

Why trucking:

“You know what, you have a great interview with Mike Chioda coming out soon, and he’s kind of the reason why I got into it, because I met his buddy like 10 years ago, 12 years ago, his buddy is very successful at trucking, he lives in Tampa now. And so I kind of found my position, what am I going to do? And I always say this, like, America needs more apprenticeships. We need to work with someone who’s done it, and to learn the ropes, and then you can really kind of make it your own. Less universities and the high tuition, don’t get me started. But anyways, I kind of found myself in that role where he was like, Hey, let me show you the ropes and what to do. And, like, get started, and I’m very grateful for it. So I had that opportunity to learn from someone who’s done it for years. This guy’s got 100 trucks, so who better to learn from?”

On when he fell out of love with wrestling:

“I’m very jaded from my exit at AEW. I’m very proud of the stuff I did there. But at the same time, I find myself questioning right now. I wish I would have just stayed in MMA at some point. Inner Circle was one of my favorite things to do in pro wrestling. I love those guys. JAS, Daddy Magic. I mean, I just really loved working with Chris. He’s number one on my Mount Rushmore, Chris Jericho, because he can just constantly reinvent himself. He can not only do that, but he can see what he has around him, and he knows how to elevate us, bring it up and make it look good. Chris Jericho is the reason why that purple hat was so over.” 

What do you mean? 

“It was his intuition. We did that backstage promo, and it was live to the crowd, and where I first said, ‘I like this hat!’ The crowd just popped. Once he heard that pop, that’s all he needed to know.”

On why he re-signed with AEW at that point:

“I didn’t know what I was gonna do next. I mean, I will say that AEW paid well. So I re-signed to give me more time to figure out what’s next. We negotiated the contract a little bit longer, but the writing was on the wall, and I could see that from the way he treated me. Even when it was me and Daddy Magic and Jeff, and we’re doing that little threesome. We had a little stint against Billy Gunn and his boys, the tag team, and we did that rap off, we went out and rapped in the ring. I mean, who doesn’t want to see white guys rap on television? But it’s Daddy Magic. So you’re gonna love it. You’re gonna tune in. Right before that happened, like the beat started, and he was like, ‘I’m gonna forget. I’m gonna forget.’ I was like, Dude, it’s just a promo. Just remember a promo. He turns to me and goes, ‘I f*cking forgot!’ And so I say the first word that starts his little lyrical conquest. And he had it from there, but, man, I loved working with those guys.”

On whether there were any conversations about joining UFC:

“There was a big-time agent that I spoke with in 2014, I can’t remember his name. I went to a UFC Orlando pay-per-view, and my college football coach works for UFC now. He’s good friends with Dana. I sat right behind Shaq, I had great seats, and I got to meet Dana and whatnot. And then after that, I met this agent. He was like, Brock had just started doing it. Brock was really the idea behind it, because I saw how he came back to wrestling, and it made him a bigger star. I’m like, what if I do that, and I wish I had done it sooner. I wish I had done it in 2014. But I didn’t know the path when I first decided to do it, when I left WWE in 2017 I called my friend Josh Rafferty. I met him through Dave Bautista. And I was like, Hey Josh, who was Dave’s MMA coach. He was like, Oh, that’s easy. It was me. I had a lot of beers with this guy throughout the years, and I never knew he was an MMA because he didn’t put it out there. He’s a very humble guy, and we would just hang out and have a good time. And turns out Josh Rafferty was on UFC contender number one, like the season that built the UFC. So we started training together, and I wouldn’t be here without him. 100%.”

On criticism of his World Heavyweight Title reign:

“I mean, I’m on a list, a very elite list, of World Heavyweight Champions. I don’t really care what people think. Hindsight is 20/20. I got into this for me, I’m glad you guys like me, I don’t care if you hate me. I’m not gonna sacrifice my happiness to worry about that stuff, especially in this day and age with social media. It is what it is. I’m a World Heavyweight Champion, whether you like it or not.”

On the “We the people” catchphrase:

“So I win the Elimination Chamber, and they’re trying to put some heat on me. And they’re like, All right, let’s come up a mouthpiece. And we just so happened to be in Nashville, where Dutch lives. I’ll be honest at the time, I didn’t really know that much about him. Of course, I heard the name Dirty Dutch Mantell before. I knew he was from Memphis, but I didn’t know everything. Triple H brought him in. Triple H was a big fan of his, and so we bring him in, and this is before Raw that night that he comes out. And we’re like, cutting promos, and he did one, and we’re like, okay, do this. Then he did another one, do this. And then when he did the second one, this wasn’t written, it wasn’t planned, he just felt it and he said, ‘We the people’ at the end of it to close the interview, and everybody in the room just knew, oh sh*t. And this was originally my storyline that I pitched to them, John Piermarini and I wrote it together. And anyways, after that, we were like, okay, that just felt right. And we would go out there at times, and we do live events, Dutch is great at promos, he just has a way with words when he would say some pretty insulting things. And at the time, still now, it was very scandalous to be talking about these things. Then still, at the end, no matter how much they would boo us, they would say, along with us, we the people again. And so we knew Okay, this is big. And I don’t think that was my point earlier, when I pitched the angle I was like if they go for this, this could be big. I don’t think WWE really got on board with how big it could be until later down the line.”

On the rumour that Chavo Guerrero was the eagle:

“Number one in your heart, number one in your program, Chavo Guerrero. He did it for most of it, and he did the best. It was amazing. He was not happy doing it, but he was amazing.” 

Why was Chavo Guerrero the soaring eagle?

“I think it was just one of those timing issues where we needed someone with experience. Obviously, he played to the crowd so well with everything, and he didn’t have something going on at the time. Also, [I was] a young guy pair me with an older guy, so I can learn and get a little wisdom from it. Chavo, thank you. You will always be my soaring eagle.” 

On being involved in the Michael Cole and Jerry Lawler storyline:

“I had Jim Ross put me in an ankle lock. But it’s all worth it if you get to take a stunner from Stone Cold at WrestleMania, that’s the payoff. It was worth it for me. Got a WrestleMania match out of it and it’s all part of the career. This is something I learned from Jericho. You always got to evolve. Like I said earlier, you got to be vulnerable. So if you’re this big, tough guy, you can only do that for so long. Nobody wants to watch Goldberg now. He can’t run a spot. He sucks. Yeah, I said that bitch.” 

You think Goldberg sucks?

“He can’t run a spot. The only thing he could do is a f*cking spear and get paid $600,000 for it.”

He’s 58 years old:

“Then stop pro wrestling! Stop coming in and taking our money. Sorry. I’m not sorry.”

On the Michael Cole slap:

“He hits like a girl.”

Who hits the hardest?

“I do [laughs]. I always enjoyed working with Sheamus, even though it was sometimes difficult to put the match together. We could go out there and we could hit each other, and we knew this is how we work.”

What is Jake Hager grateful for?

“My kids, the career that I’ve had and my family.”

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