Jake Hager: Before I Won The WWE World Heavyweight Championship, Chris Jericho Told Me ‘You Better Not F*ck This Up’

Jake Hager reflects on winning the WWE World Heavyweight Championship after WrestleMania 26.

As Jack Swagger in WWE, Hager found himself as Mr Money In The Bank after WrestleMania 26, and on the first WWE SmackDown after the event, he would successfully cash in to become WWE World Heavyweight Champion.

While speaking to Chris Van Vliet in a new interview, Jake Hager was asked about memories as World Heavyweight Champion in WWE, with Hager mentioning that Chris Jericho told him before he cashed in that he ‘better not f*ck this up’.

“The first one that comes to mind is right after WrestleMania. The next day we were in Phoenix, and I did a tease with Cena. Then I was supposed to be off, and then Tuesday morning, I get a call. I’m still in Vegas. Because I was there. I had just proposed to my ex-wife now, but anyways, I was off, and they called me to go to Las Vegas for the thing. And they had an idea. [Because they were taping SmackDown at that time?] Yeah, and they were taping it there, and then it was gonna air on Friday. I got to the building early, and I go stand outside Vince’s office. Chris is in there. Edge is in there. John Lauranaitis is in there. Vince is in there. And I can just hear Chris yelling. Because Chris and Edge just had that epic. It was a great Heavyweight Championship match at WrestleMania two nights before. Then obviously, wherever they were heading, the plans shifted, and so they got me waiting in the hallway. And I still to this day don’t know if they were just f*cking with me, because I just hear Chris yelling and yelling and yelling. He’s always professional, but I still think that at the back of my head they’re like, ‘Hey, let’s f*ck with the rookie a little bit, put them out in the hallways’. Because why was I in the meeting at all? Anyways, we get in there and Chris says, ‘You better not f*ck this up.’ Great advice, right? Took him at his word. So it all worked out great. Chris did the thing where he took his shoe off a little bit before the gut-wrench Powerbomb, and the shoe went flying into the audience. That was something that he wanted to do. So I appreciate both those guys and I had matches with Randy Orton after that. It was awesome. Worked with Big Show. So many times I worked with Big Show. I loved working with him. We did live events, I could just kind of be an idiot. I can remember this one time at Fort Myers, my uncle was in the crowd, and I really looked up to my aunt and uncle, and they had a beer, and so they were sitting front row because I got them seats. I’m selling on the outside, working the crowd, and I take their beer and I take a big swig of it and Show already knew what to do. I hop up on the apron, I got my back to him. I’m just talking to the crowd. As soon as I turn around, he just punches me and goes everywhere into the crowd, chokeslam, match is over. Sometimes that’s all you need. So I always remember that he will always give me sh*t. He’s got a bad knee, and I blew it out during that heavyweight title run. We did this certain spot 100 times, and for some reason one night when he called the spot, I just stopped short. He was like, ‘Take out my knee.’ He was expecting me to do the front chop block that I would do. I just stopped short, and I kicked him right in his knee for some reason, I don’t know, and he always gives me crap about that. I’m sorry Show, please forgive me.” 

Later in the interview, Chris would ask Hager about the criticism he faced as WWE World Heavyweight Champion in the wake of his Money In The Bank cash-in.

“I mean, I’m on a list, a very elite list, of World Heavyweight Champions. I don’t really care what people think. Hindsight is 20/20. I got into this for me, I’m glad you guys like me, I don’t care if you hate me. I’m not gonna sacrifice my happiness to worry about that stuff, especially in this day and age with social media. It is what it is. I’m a World Heavyweight Champion, whether you like it or not.”

Elsewhere in the same interview, Hager gave his opinion on Goldberg, claiming Goldberg can’t even run a spot. You can read more about that here.

Thanks to Chris Van Vliet for the quotes