Quotes from Jake Hager

If you speak pro wrestling or MMA, you almost speak any language.

Your character has to be an extension of yourself, and you got to be comfortable in it. Otherwise, people are going to see right through it. They're going to see that you're acting or that you're playing wrestling.

My junior and senior year in college is when I first realized what MMA is and really started liking it. I went the other route - I went into the entertainment field and started wrestling professionally, and I did that for about 11 years.

I grew up in one of the most prolific high-school-wrestling programs in the country, and MMA fighters are more successful when they have that amateur-wrestling background.

I love being a family man.

I feel like being a professional wrestling has definitely made me a better MMA fighter.

I really like Bellator and them as a company and how they are run. It's a popular place for fighters to go to.

You don't see a lot of fighters with no or little experience getting to be on the main card. I know that's an incredible honor, but at the same time, I know my worth, and I know my value.

People want to see fighters who can put on a little show and then back it up. Hopefully I can do both of those things.

I look like a winner, I smell like a winner, so why not put it on the big screen?

Any time you can get Glenn Beck crying it's a good thing.

For me, the wins and losses in pro wrestling never mattered. The thing that matters is the time on television to tell that story. If you have a two-segment match on television, whether you win or lose, both people's brands win with a great match.

I'm lanky and goofy.

Your natural instinct when people are throwing punches at you is to back up. That just makes it more dangerous for you. You'll get hurt that way. You've got to teach yourself to go forward, move your feet and move your head. I'm not going to lie, that was tough for me to learn.

If I just keep my head down and I keep working hard, that's just what I do.

I want people to say that Jack Swagger/Jake Hager is a world champion in MMA and in pro wrestling.

I would say to the critics that they don't have a black belt in time management like I do.

As far as the work in the ring, it's so much technique and spacing and timing, and that's what amateur wrestling is, too. So I felt like I learned very fast and a lot of things came naturally for me.

Anyone that holds a championship you are on a list of a very few people that have had that special honor, and it is really incredible to say that no matter what you say about my wrestling career I was a World Heavyweight Champion and you can't take that away from me.

I think Bellator is the place for me to hone my craft and they have a great selection of heavyweights here. They put on a great card every time so it's really exciting to be a part of that.

In addition to being gifted athletically and being the strongest guy in the room, Cesaro is very smart upstairs. He can go in the back and wrestle a match out in his head, then he'll add his Cesaro-isms in the ring to really make the match special. He knows exactly where to put things and make a match explosive.

Growing up in Perry, Oklahoma, there's not a lot going on, so we would go wrestle anywhere and anyplace we could. It really is who I am.

Kofi Kingston has always been one of my favorite opponents to wrestle. He and I started back in McDonough, Georgia in 2006 in developmental at Deep South together. So, our careers have come along at the same time. He's incredible.

I need to wrestle, I need to compete.