Jake Hager Reveals Who Played Bald Eagle Mascot in WWE

Jake Hager recently spoke with Chris Van Vliet and discussed his “We The People” chant during his Real Americans era with Dutch Mantell, noting that it was Chavo Guerrero who played the bald eagle mascot, though Guerrero wasn’t happy about it. Highlights of his comments are below.

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.”