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Jack Swagger Pitched Angle To Vince McMahon Before Leaving WWE

March 4, 2019 | Posted by Joseph Lee
MLW Jake Hager Jack Swagger WWE Jake Hager

In an interview with E & C’s Pod of Awesomeness (via Wrestling Inc), Jack Swagger revealed that he pitched an idea to become an MMA crossover star to Vince McMahon prior to leaving WWE. Here are highlights:

On WWE needing an off season: “From ’08 to ’18, so 10 years. Yeah, it flew by. I don’t know if it was a gift or a curse. I never really got injured, so I never went away, so I never got to have that big comeback type of deal and all fresh again. I was always kind of there. I feel like that kind of changed the dynamic a little bit. I feel like pro wrestling definitely needs a season, like, at least have it nine months a year, so you can go away for three months and be fresh with it and be fresh with storylines and make it easier again.”

On an angle he pitched to Vince McMahon: “Before I left, Vince had caught me in the hallway and he told me that they were wasting me and I said, ‘man, that’s awesome to hear. Thank you for saying that. I’ll be in your office next week with ideas.’ And I pitched him an idea about leaving and having me go fight MMA and come back and kind of be a little controversy between us or something and then comeback type of deal. And he didn’t really want to do anything about it. And after that, not with him, but with everyone else, the communication really broke down, so I was like, ‘okay, it’s time to go. And so [MMA] was on my mind. I wanted to do [MMA] then.”

On continuing to compete in MMA and wrestling: “Well, like I always said, being a better MMA fighter makes me a better pro wrestler and being a pro wrestler makes me a better MMA fighter. I want to continue to do both. Very quickly, [Bellator is] going to announce my next fight. I feel like it’s going to be in May, so it’s a tight window here now, so I don’t think I’m going to do a lot of pro wrestling in between, but I definitely plan on wrestling this summer at the bigger shows when it’s nice and hot and into the fall. And again, have another fight at the end of the year when kind of the independents lag.”

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Jack Swagger, Joseph Lee