Just a couple days ago, I made a post regarding the future of Jack Swagger. Hager (Swagger) had stated on Chael Sonnen's podcast that his release had been granted and he was already looking to go into other ventures (though he has made it clear that he wants to stay in professional wrestling, so going to IMPACT is likely).
WWE has since issued a statement on Jack Swagger saying, “Jack Swagger has not been granted a release form his WWE contract. When he is granted his release, Jack Swagger will remain under exclusive contract to WWE for 90 days and will be compensated accordingly during that time.”
WWE is keen on using their 90 Day no compete clause and it will be no different with Hager. At this point though, as Hager has clearly stated that he wants out, the only proper course of action would be releasing Swagger and liquidating his merchandise. Since Swagger has already blatantly said he had already left, why keep him on? It isn't like he is the World Champion and his presence has not been felt ever since coming over to SmackDown.
Regardless of this though, Swagger is someone that I feel has been incredibly misused. Between the early years and his partnership with Dutch Mantel (Zeb Colter) and a ill-conceived tag team with Cesaro, WWE has not been kind to Swagger. Should he leave though, he could definitely make an Impact (cough cough).
Swagger was a 1-time ECW Champion, a 1-time United States Champion, and a 1-time World Heavyweight Champion as well as the Money in the Bank winner in 2010.
His problem was he never got over his speech impediment. He has the look and obviously the the talent, but sadly was never much of a talker, and it always did, and probably always will, hold him back.
Sadly.
If I had that power, I would have put him with Heyman.
Yeah, it might have worked. But from what I've understood about Heyman, he needs to be motivated to get someone over.
It never really worked with Ryback and Cesaro and Perfect's son, since Heyman, according to Ryback, was never really that interested to work with them. At least not as interested as he was working with Punk and Lesnar.
True. Jack's pairing with Mantel wasn't bad the gimmick was just fucked from the get-go.
I don't think wrestling fans knew how to react to the pro-American patriot being the heel.
It was weird.
A babyface, true American Jack Swagger going against a heel Alberto Del Rio could have worked in today's political climate.
Agreed. WWE tried to do the whole "Tea Party is racist" thing and it never took.