10 AEW Stars Who Desperately Need More TV Time

7. Jake Hager

Joey Janela
AEW

Jake Hager came into AEW with a lot to prove. Largely seen as a WWE also-ran, no one was crying out for the lost, great Jack Swagger run, lost to bad creative.

Hager has hardly revealed himself as a wrestling polymath but he’s put on some entertaining displays, notably a win over Wardlow in an MMA-style match. More importantly, his dumb, meat-head energy has led to a succession of memorable boy-poppers as part the Inner Circle perpetual entertainment machine. He can steal a segment with a just couple of words between his more verbose colleagues.

As well as which, Hager's tag team matches with Chris Jericho have been entirely underrated. Some more tag action for the pair would frankly be more entertaining than watching “The Demo God” muscle in on Eddie Kingston’s feud with Daniel Garcia.

A shame, then, that lately Hager is rarely seen and in his last appearance he was basically just set dressing for a segment teasing tension between Proud & Powerful and Jericho.

Swagger will always be a supporting player rather than a main attraction, but Jake shouldn’t be content stood in the background. No one is expecting Tony Khan to put a belt on Hager but he should at least be competing in matches as if that were his aim. As the man himself might say, “Championships, yeah!”

Contributor
Contributor

Chris Chopping is a writer, YouTuber and stand up comedian. Check out his channel at YouTube.com/c/chrischopping. His dream job would be wrestling Manager and he’s long since stopped reading the comments section.... Follow him @MrChrisChopping on Twitter.