Jake Hager Weighs in on Cain Velasquez Debuting on Smackdown Right After His AEW Debut

– Speaking with Ariel Helwani, Jake Hager discussed Cain Velasquez’s debut on Smackdown last week. Hager and Velasquez made their debuts for their currenmt respective promotions (AEW & WWE) on last week’s shows, and Hager discussed how he thinks fans will react to Velasquez, whether the Smackdown debut was a reaction to his debut and more.

Highlights from the discussion, and the foll video, are below:

On who had the better debut between him and Velasquez: “Oh, well if you’re asking me, I 100% think I had the better debut. I don’t know if you heard, but there was 14,000 people chanting ‘We the People’ for me. And I didn’t even bother to raise my hand for it.”

On Velasquez coming to WWE: “You know what, I think it’s cool that Cain was able to cross over. I think it’s awesome. I want to see more and more people cross over. I want to see more wrestlers cross over into MMA, more MMA cross over into pro wrestling. Because then our fans truly see how similar the worlds are, and how great they can be when you understand what’s going on … I think it’s interesting, though, that they saw me surprise debut, and then a couple days later they had Cain come out, not even signed to a contract, you know. Kind of rush-hush-hush. Hmmm.”

On how he thinks WWE fans will react to Velasquez: “I mean, he walked out with Rey Mysterio [for his] first time. That’s a great start right there. It’s hard to beat that debut. And then having Brock Lesnar cower to you, it’s pretty cool. The fans are very fickle, much like they are in MMA. They want to know that you’re 100% involved and that you’re not playing games and that this isn’t a joke to you, this is serious. Because this is very serious to those fans watching and paying their money to it. So I think he’s a very hard worker, he always has been even back when we used to wrestle in college. And so I don’t see any reason why he can’t succeed.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Ariel Helwani’s MMA Show with a h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.