Jake Hager was a guest on today’s episode of the Ariel Helwani Show, and spoke about embracing his professional wrestling past in his blossoming MMA career.
Hager spoke about using his ‘We The People’ gimmick from WWE on Saturday night, and if he needed any clearance from WWE:
“No permission. We The People is public domain, any American can use that. I wanted to embrace my past. I feel like I was more known as Jack Swagger, so it’s easier to continue that brand, and hopefully—as we’ve discussed in the past—I’ll fight under [the name] Jack Swagger. Even though ‘Jake Hager’ is pretty cool, and I’ve got some big name ideas that would go with that, I ultimately wanted to embrace my professional wrestling past.
I feel like being a professional wrestling has definitely made me a better MMA fighter. I feel like because I wrestled at WrestleMania and in some of the biggest arenas in the world—Madison Square Garden, Staples Center—I was able to handle Saturday [his first MMA fight] like a pro and go out there cool as the other side of the pillow and take care of business. Why run away from that?”
Helwani asked why couldn’t he fight as Jack Swagger for his debut, to which Hager said he doesn’t have the intelluctual property rights at this time. He says he’s working on getting those rights, and when asked if he’s confident, Hager said “it’s a lot of legal talk, but I got a great lawyer helping me work on it and I feel confident in her.”
Hager ended his portion of the interview by explaining what We The People means to him in 2019, in a non-WWE setting, saying people should unite, and stop fighting (unless it’s in a cage):
“In this world, I feel like we all need to be nicer to each other. I feel like we need to come together and all admit that we’re here for the same reason. Let’s come together, let the people stop fighting each other, but let them fight in the octagon.”
Related: Jake Hager Talks Trademarks, Wants To Use The Jack Swagger Name
Up next on #HelwaniShow: @RealJackSwagger discusses his MMA debut and where he falls in Bellator's heavyweight division
Watch live! https://t.co/cJA3XHZVQy
— Ariel Helwani (@arielhelwani) January 28, 2019
