Quotes from Jake Hager

The more you boo me the better I'm going to wrestle. You don't like me? So what. It's a lot of fun to work like that and wrestle with that mindset.

In my first fight, I acknowledged it. I'm a professional wrestler, this is who I am, who you know me as. But guess what, I've also been wrestling since I was 5 years old - real wrestling - amateur wrestling, Olympic wrestling.

Once you're an amateur wrestler, you're always an amateur wrestler.

Absolutely, it's awesome to be a pro wrestler.

People know my name, and because of that, I have more leverage as a professional fighter. And as a professional fighter, as a professional wrestler, that is something we are all battling for. We want to make our brand a name brand and a household name. And that essentially gives us more leverage and helps us provide for our families.

I've heard that I'm a wrestler and not a real fighter, but I have nothing to prove to anybody.

Cesaro should be world champ. I'm not afraid to say it, Cesaro is my favorite wrestler.

I relate everything to amateur wrestling, including the way I watch basketball and the way I watch football. My brain thinks as an amateur wrestler. That's who I am.

A lot of great fighters were amateur wrestlers first and you can study them on film to see how they adapted the techniques.

It is cool to be a pro wrestler and that makes it so much better for us as pro wrestlers - who go out there and put our bodies on the line and give the fans the entertainment that they deserve.

I'm making MMA great again for pro wrestlers.

The level of difficulty in most areas of MMA is very high. It's a high learning curve. The footwork in boxing alone takes years to master. I will rely heavily on my amateur wrestling to get out of bad situations and take me from defense to offense. I'll try to dictate the fight on my terms.

A long time ago I learned how to shut my mouth, listen to my coaches and put trust in my coaches.

Some people work their entire lives to become a professional fighter and see certain guys with exposure or just a name, hop into the professional ranks. It can rub people the wrong way and have them very doubtful of your skills because they see first-hand the hard work and how many years it takes to master this.

I'm a competitor. I had that reputation in my time at the WWE. I would walk into a locker room, start wrestling with someone, and all I'd hear is, 'There goes Swagger again.'

Before I signed with WWE, I thought my athletic career was done. I was going into the finance industry and I just thought I couldn't compete any more. But the mind is a really powerful thing and you can unlock your potential if you choose to ignore what your mind is telling you.

The nerves with WWE performance is more the live television angles because we have time limits and have storylines we want to get through in that time. You're going to forget a lot about the spots.

Coming to WWE, where they treat the talent a certain way, I really gravitated toward Bellator because you saw the trend in fighters wanting to go over there because they were getting better deals and getting more freedom with it.

A lot of people want me to say negative things about WWE, but I'm very grateful for my career there.

To be successful in WWE, you have to love what you do. You have to want to steal the show every time you go out.

That's one thing I found out about myself when I left WWE: I'm that guy that needs to be pushed full throttle. That's when you're gonna get the best out of me.

I was young; I signed with the WWE when I was 24. I was up on the main roster when I was 26 and 10 years later that is a lot of learning and a lot of growth.

WWE really likes to keep its fans on the edge of their seats and on their toes.

If you go back and look at WWE Magazine, they asked me when I was going to win my first world championship and I told them WrestleMania XXVI, so I was only a couple days off.