During an episode of Insight With Chris Van Vliet, former WWE and AEW star Jake Hager discussed various topics, including his contemplation of transitioning to MMA in 2014, and he expressed a desire that he had followed through with that decision.
This is what Jake Hager said, “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%.”
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