Jack Swagger On Life After WWE, Rights To His Character, Current Product, WWE Micromanaging Talent
Earlier this year, Jack Swagger parted ways with the WWE after over a decade with the company. The 34-year-old recently spoke to the Memorabilia Guy. Here are some of the highlights from the interview:
What's he looking forward to:
"I think the thing that I'm feeling the most is the freedom ? the best things in pro wrestling happen naturally. Whether it's the fans gravitating towards something, or a character developing a certain way. The best ones develop naturally and you have to have freedom in order to do that. The promotions are really becoming their own brands and some are working together and some are doing very good business. And they are providing wrestlers outside of WWE a very good opportunity in this day of social media and the internet to really have the freedom to create their own character and really run with it.
"Don't get me wrong, the WWE has some great people who work on this stuff everyday. A lot of their angles are brilliant and fun to watch. They just tend to get micromanaged a lot. But now I work for my own company, so I guess I make the head decisions on those sorts of things now."
The rights to his character:
"Intellectually, they own 'Jack Swagger', but I've been that for 10 years now, so I think the easiest way for me, at this point, to not get into any issues, and not to get into any red tape, I'm going as 'Formerly Known as Jack Swagger'. It's very silly when you're talking about human beings, but it's kind of what we have to do right now. Or, I might just become 'The Real French-American' and change my name to 'Jacques Swagger'! (Laughs)"
His thoughts on the current product:
"I feel like every decade and generation of wrestlers kind of dictate the product, and right now I feel like there's a young batch of guys that are really doing well. They have most of the workload on their shoulders, in terms of big matches, night after night. Really impressive stuff to be able to continue it for so long. I don't get to watch a lot of it, with the kids, but I think the roster at the WWE is phenomenal. Definitely in the last couple of years it's been so athletic and not only that, actual good people wanting to help each other."
Swagger also spoke about why he left the WWE, reactions from fans, his future projects, and more. Click here to read the whole interview.
Source: Memorabilia Guy