Jake Hager: AEW Has Been ‘The Greatest Year In My Career’

Inner Circle member Jake Hager has described the past year in All Elite Wrestling as the “greatest year in my career.”

Hager shared his feelings on his AEW tenure while appearing on Chris Jericho’s podcast, Talk is Jericho. From a pro wrestling perspective, he believes signing with AEW has allowed him to experience some memorable moments over the past year.

“I look back at this year with AEW as the greatest year in my career pro wrestling wise. Moments like that were really cool,” Hager said. “14,000 people, the debut episode – I was nervous as s–t and I had the easiest thing to do. All I had to do was run out to the ring without tripping and then slide in the ring and do a couple things. You look back at some of the uncut footage that they have formatted, it’s so cool, and the crowd was going so crazy.”

Hager reflected on how he immediately knew something special was happening as soon as he debuted. He recalled how the crowd was chanting, “We The People.” Hager noted how “[…] the second night is when you completely cut it off, and they haven’t said it since.”

He then stressed how it was essential to separate themselves from previous gimmicks. Hager expressed how “[…] we are different characters with AEW, so let’s be different.”

Jericho agreed with Jake Hager’s point. He explained how, although he appreciates fans still changing “Y2J,” it irks him as the character is 20 years old. Jericho also added how chanting for old WWE gimmicks and catchphrases is “demeaning” to AEW and that fans should embrace the fact they are new people with new characters.