As previously noted, Jake Hager, formerly WWE's Jack Swagger, was recently a guest on E&C's Pod Of Awesomeness. Among many other things, Swagger talked about how there should be breaks in professional wrestling, a MMA storyline he pitched to WWE Chairman Vince McMahon, and his upcoming schedule.

In Swagger's opinion, there should be an off-season in professional wrestling, as he was with WWE for 10 years without ever having a break.

"From '08 to '18, so 10 years. Yeah, it flew by," Swagger said. "I don't know if it was a gift or a curse. I never really got injured, so I never went away, so I never got to have that big comeback type of deal and all fresh again. I was always kind of there. I feel like that kind of changed the dynamic a little bit. I feel like pro wrestling definitely needs a season, like, at least have it nine months a year, so you can go away for three months and be fresh with it and be fresh with storylines and make it easier again."

Apparently, Swagger pitched to McMahon an angle where 'The Real American American' would leave WWE for MMA and return to WWE in a feud with McMahon.

"Before I left, Vince had caught me in the hallway and he told me that they were wasting me and I said, 'Man, that's awesome to hear. Thank you for saying that. I'll be in your office next week with ideas,"' Swagger recalled. "And I pitched him an idea about leaving and having me go fight MMA and come back and kind of be a little controversy between us or something and then comeback type of deal. And he didn't really want to do anything about it. And after that, not with him, but with everyone else, the communication really broke down, so I was like, 'okay, it's time to go.'" Swagger added, "and so [MMA] was on my mind. I wanted to do [MMA] then."

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Swagger shared that he will continue to wrestle and fight, though he will wrestle sparingly from now till his next fight. Swagger will return to the independent scene in the summer.

"Well, like I always said, being a better MMA fighter makes me a better pro wrestler and being a pro wrestler makes me a better MMA fighter. I want to continue to do both," Swagger said. "Very quickly, [Bellator is] going to announce my next fight. I feel like it's going to be in May, so it's a tight window here now, so I don't think I'm going to do a lot of pro wrestling in between, but I definitely plan on wrestling this summer at the bigger shows when it's nice and hot and into the fall. And again, have another fight at the end of the year when kind of the independents lag."

Check out the show here or via the audio player below.

If you use any of the quotes from this article, please credit E&C's Pod Of Awesomeness with an H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.

Source: E&C's Pod Of Awesomeness