Bellator 214 Results: Jack Swagger wins his MMA debut fight in incredible fashion
What's the story?
Former WWE Superstar Jack Swagger, real name Jake Hager, put on a solid performance in his first pro MMA fight as he finished off American J.W. Kiser by an Arm-Triangle Choke, two minutes and nine seconds in the very first round.
In case you didn't know...
The former WWE World Heavyweight champion left the pro wrestling giant in March 2017 and began his MMA training after dabbling in the independent circuit for a brief period. He was signed up by Scott Coker-led Bellator in November 2017 and has ever since been working on fine-tuning his overall MMA game.
After putting in the goods for almost 18 months, Hager was all set to make his much-anticipated debut against the 41-year-old J.W.Kiser, who came into the fight with a record of one win and one loss.
Swagger came into the fight with many doubting his credentials as he had never taken a 'legit' punch to the face during his time with the WWE. However, Swagger is an accomplished amateur wrestler who was one of the purest athletes in the WWE.
The heart of the matter
A majority of the hype leading into Bellator 214 was attributed to the debut of Swagger and thankfully for his fans, the former All-American didn't disappoint like CM Punk.
Current WWE SmackDown Superstar R-Truth accompanied Swagger to the cage by spitting a few bars over Swagger's entrance song.
Swagger looked focused on the task at hand and touched gloves with Kiser to begin the fight. The respective game plans of both fighters were easy to understand as Kiser looked for the killer knockout punch while Swagger wanted to take the fight to the ground.
Swagger did so after taking one shot to the face and overpowered himself on Kiser on the mat. He initially tried to lock in the Kimura but Kiser resisted admirably well. Swagger then landed a combination of brutal elbows from the top and subsequently caught Kiser in a tightly griped arm-triangle choke.
In the post-fight interview, Swagger had a message for his former boss Vince McMahon who had advised Swagger not to lose prior to the fight. The former WWE United States Champion cheekily stated that in order to convince Vince, you got to 'con'-Vince! Jeez!
What's next?
As stated during his post-fight interview with Big John, Swagger is here to stay and will be looking to make major strides in Bellator's explosive Heavyweight division.
Swagger will surely face opponents of higher quality going forward, however, he did look like he belonged in the cage despite being up against a washed-up Kiser.