What Went Wrong with Jack Swagger?

[DethMetal]

Look at him. That's the smile of a champion.

When Jack Swagger first arrived on the scene in ECW, he quickly took the show by storm. He ended up becoming ECW champion by beating Matt Hardy. When ECW ended and he went to one of the two major shows, a lot of people said that he as going to flop. All of a sudden, he wins Money in the Bank and ends up having himself a nice little World Heavyweight Championship reign. After he lost in 2010 though, things just started to get worse and worse for Swagger. At Wrestlemania 27, he was nothing but a manager for Michael Cole. He recently lost Ziggler and Vickie as his partners and he wasn't even in the World title MITB this year. I've always wondered why Swagger fell out in the last couple of years. The only problem I ever saw was that his lisp affected his mic skills. I think when they tried to make him serious, it just couldn't fly. The arrogant, smiling Jack Swagger who does pushups on his way to the ring is the one I grew to like over time. Hopefully his little beef with Ryback can bring him back into relevancy.

Where do you think Jack Swagger went wrong? What do you hope to see him do in time?

 

[Money_Inc.]

He's a guy I really liked and had hope for. He was the world champion for almost 6 months (I think?). Now he is losing match left and right. I was beginning to think he might have done something wrong back stage, or as my wife and I always joke about, saying he parked in Vince's parking spot that night.

Anyhow, you could do a lot with him. I can see him, living up to the all American thing and maybe saving someone from something Lex Lugar style. Feud him with Ryback and have a all old school strong man contest.

 

[anvilx8]

Personally.. I don't think anything "went wrong" I think he was given a push waaaay too early.. and he is a prime example of why I DON'T like the MITB matches. I mean, sure they are awesome to watch.. but when WWE really doesn't have the "next big superstar" in a MITB match, they are forced to just make someone win.. and that's what happend with Swagger (IMO). He isn't and never was world title material. IC champ at best. He has good in-ring work. But he's bad on the mic, he's very one dimensional in terms of gimmick.. and he doesn't have that superstar look.

So to answer ur question.. i don't think anything went wrong, I just think he was pushed when he shouldn't have been.

 

[Firewall_Philip_Hanan]

The problem was that he was so cheesy, they tried to turn him heel so fans wouldn't make fun of him and hate him. Well, he's a heel and fans still make fun of him and hate him. Jack needs to be Achilles, an incredible warrior with one obvious weakness. I think Jack should have kept the ECW title and kept Christian a heel who kept trying to get it. Jack should have been a Super Face characer who was more friendly and American than John Cena. Jack needs to be the new Jim Duggan, but with the belt.

 

[roipdh123]

I think the thing that went wrong for swagger is that he get himself 3-4 months with feuds against randy orton & big show & rey mysterio for the world heavyweight championship but after it you can see he just became a floop.here is two examplesn wrestle mania XXVI he won money in the bank and in wrestle mania XXVII he was in the corner of michael cole in his match against jerry lawler.the second example is:in fatal 4 way 2010 he defended his world title against big show & rey mysterio & Cm Punk.at captiol punishment at 2011 {the PPV that replace fatal 4 way} he was against evan bourne.
I hope to see him go on to the tag team division because on the big titels he won;t be interesting & I.C. title is not for him & he start to be boring when he fight on the U.S. title.

 

[taylor360unc]

I like Swagger that smile makes you feel good he needs to be a face. Give him a gimmic about he is thankful to be in the WWE and how he is proud to be a American. He openly admits he has a lisp but he's thankful people still believe in him.

 

[Manof1,004Holds]

I liked Swagger's title run.

He has in-ring skills but he doesn't have that it factor, or that one gimmick to get him over, I think they should have turn him into an awesome American heel, and that when he does heel tactics he tells people that he does things the American way, and that he is the WWE Universe's American Hero even though he does heel-ish stuff.

 

[legendkiller1979]

I don't know that anything went wrong. I can't believe he has had the success he's had.
He's goofy. His lisp is almost unbearable. But it works because it fits his look. Every time I look at him, I think he should be wearing a hat with a prorpellar on it. There is no chance of him getting over. It's been talked about before that in ring work doesn't matter as much as being able to talk...and Swagger can't. So I don't that that anything went wrong as much as things went right when they shouldn't have.

 

[IT Factor]

Where do you think Jack Swagger went wrong?

I don't think Swagger went wrong, to be honest. He did everything right and got a surprize entrance into becoming World Champion. WWE hadn't put someone different into their main events like that in quite awhile. I was pleasantly surprized at what Swagger accomplished while champion and he impressed me. In my opinion, WWE had their usual Lesnarphobia[yes, created that term for their fear of making stars and then them leaving] and depushed him. It was very bad booking and they pretty much have buried the guy ever since that point in his career. Not Swagger's fault that WWE will not commit.

What do you hope to see him do in time?

I hope WWE come to their senses and push Swagger as the silent badass character he was before. His skills in the ring are more than adequate enough to make him a believeable champ. The most common complaint I've seen about Swagger is that he has horrible mic skills and that his lisp is awful. None of which can be reasons for holding him back. Remember when The Undertaker debuted and NEVER talked? That didn't stop him from becoming a champion. How about Goldberg? He was huge and for the first couple of years of his career, he never spoke. There are certain superstars who don't have to say a damn thing to impress people. They can just kick ass and do their thing. This is the role I'd like to see Swagger in. Go in, have great matches, and remain silent. That takes care of his inability to speak and capitalizes on his obvious size and talent. Like it or not, Swagger is among that next generation of stars that could become big stars if used in the right roles. Hopefully, WWE can find a good middleground between Taker and Goldberg for Swagger and make him a dominant competitor, but one capable of more depth in the ring and having long matches.

 

[Jerichoholic8894]

What went wrong IMO, was Jack Swagger cashed MITB in too fast and that's not his fault, but WWE needed to build him, he needed to push it to the new year like Edge did in 05-06

I feel like if he was on Smackdown and without Vickie he could get on the right track with a couple of nice feuds along the way.

 

[Shakin' Abe]

This may sound shallow but I think it's his lisp. The fans seem not to take him very seriously and I really think it's due to his mic skills. He's a big guy and shows flashes of talent in the ring but I don't think the fans think he's a man. He sounds like a spoiled little boy on the mic.

 

[spiketbear]

What went wrong IMO, was Jack Swagger cashed MITB in too fast and that's not his fault, but WWE needed to build him, he needed to push it to the new year like Edge did in 05-06

The only reason Swagger cashed in a few days after winning MITB is because 2010 was the first year of the MITB pay-per-view. It was only 4 months after WM, so obviously they had to have no briefcase holders going in to the pay-per-view.

 

[Kelso1ftw]

I never really was a fan of Jack Swagger, his character always seemed like some kind of cheap knock off of Kurt Angle acting like he is the best wrestler, also the lisp was a bit annoying at times too. I'm sure he could get pushed to upper midcard if the WWE wanted and maybe a title run or two... maybe a face turn might help?

 

[ChicagoBornPunk51]

What went wrong is there really was no tag team division to speak of when Swagger made his Raw debut. IMO, with Swagger's lisp he should have been given a steady partner who could do the talking, while he himself would have been the ring talent and beast of the team. If for no other reason, talent like Swagger is good reason enough to have kept a healthy tag division for workers like him with limited mic ability to toil away and get themselves over as enforcer types. This would have allowed him to get the years of in ring work in and polish of his technique and timing, while also allowing him to get over for his athleticism. This would have also allowed him time to work with speech and vocal coaches, so he would have been ready when it was time to break with, and feud against his steady partner, and thereafter branching off on his own. I feel if this would have been a viable option for him, provided the speech therapy worked well enough, at 30 years of age right now, he would have been ready for WWE/WHC programs and a main event push right now.

I always felt this is one of the biggest and best reasons to have a healthy tag team division around. So workers like Swagger (Bret Hart being another good example), with good ring work, but handicaps in personality and mic work, could still get themselves over while they worked on the other weaknesses holding them back from a legit main event spot.

 

[asslber]

I would maybe do an angle where Superstars, Heel and Face, continuously make fun of Swagger for his lisp. Have this go on for maybe a month or two, up until Swagger gets to the point that he snaps. He attacks cameraman, other backstage crew, some NXT/Superstars nobodies, and maybe even Cena, Punk, Orton, or Sheamus.

I would then put him in a very heated feud against Christian(implying he's still the IC Champion) which leads to a match for the Intercontinental Championship. Have Swagger win the Title, but have him show no emotion whatsoever after the win - almost like he doesn't care. The only thing he cares about is that he beat Christian. Then the next week on Smackdown(or RAW) have him relinquish the Championship Title and say that it's not what he wants.

After this, maybe have him go after Sheamus and have him injure Sheamus or something in a very hot feud for the World Title. Sheamus has been an absolute tank of a worker, the guy deserves some time off. What better way to give Sheamus time off and to make Swagger look like a legit threat at the same time than to have Swagger injure Sheamus?

Give Swagger a lengthy, very dominate title reign with the Heavyweight Championship after injuring Sheamus. I believe this would give Swagger a lot of heat because in doing so, he would have attacked innocent crew members, beat Christian lifeless for the title, only to relinquish it showing that he doesn't care about props, but more about destruction, have him injure a huge fan favorite and champion like Sheamus, and then give him a lengthy, dominate title reign to rub it into the faces of fans and Superstars in the back even more.

 

[The mind]

The general WWE fan isn't dumb, and they saw that Jack Swagger was nothing more than the k-mart version of Kurt Angle.

Swagger was held back by the fact that he can't cut a promo, mainly because of his lisp. He's somewhat bland, and to get him over, the WWE made him their new Kurt Angle, whom they had just lost to TNA.

But Swagger is nowhere in the same league as Angle. Swagger is limited in the ring, on the mic, and the WWE fans saw this. So no matter how much the WWE tried to push Swagger (even pairing him with Dolph Ziggler and Vickie to get him over), the fans just never bought into his charactor, hence why he's being reduced to jobber status, which is right where he belongs in my opinion.

 

[ヒュー　G.　レックション]

Soon as he won the title his personality turned serious. I thought he was great as his happy self he was at least somewhat unique "gimmick" but he turned into a boring guy. Watch him win the title, his gimmick changes as soon as he gets the pin! That meant his reign turned to shit.

 

[Mustang Sally]

I don't know that anything went particularly wrong. The company tried with Swagger, and it didn't work out..... not at the highest level they were shooting for, anyway.

A couple of years ago, most fans seemed to agree it was unusual for such a young guy to become a world champion so quickly, right? My guess is that the company felt they had a sure-fire mega-star on their hands and figured they'd test it by shooting him straight to the top to see how he got over. To what was probably their surprise, Jack simply didn't belong at the top, which is not the same as saying there's no place for him in WWE. Trial and error.

It's not as if the company abandoned him even after removing him as a top-tier performer. They teamed him with Vickie, with Dolph, with Michael Cole, with Big Show (the "trophy" sequence) and have had Swagger performing on both brands. He simply doesn't have star quality; the company seems to have admitted it in their handling of Jack.

It's not as if Swagger has no function in WWE; there's plenty of room for a guy who can wrestle in the technical style as well as this guy can. He's not an individual star; he's a complementary player, good for lending support to other wrestlers and to providing an opponent for the Rybacks (and others) on their way up. Once in a while, they can slip a minor individual title or a tag team belt around Jack's waist.

There's no problem here......and we shouldn't create one.

 

[Fire Marshall Bill]

What I'm noticing in people's answer is a glaring lack of stating that 3-4 months before Jack Swagger won the MITB and WHC, he was jobbing to Hornswaggle. That alone is a huge reason he failed. Call it bad booking if you want, or the perfect storm for failure, but between jobbing to Hornswaggle very recently, to being forced to cash in quickly without any sort of build up of his character, he was doomed from the beginning. He never should've won that match.

What they should've done with him was turn him face when Cole started berating him last year at WM. I have never been a fan of Swagger, and I really hated his WHC run, but even I got a little excited when they teased his face turn. Now it just might be too late.

 

[theBec2101]

I don’t think anything went wrong with him really. Hs is a great wrestler his promos aren’t bad. I think he just got lost in the shuffle like a lot of the wrestlers do. He'll be back on top again sometime I believe.

 

[Radical]

I'm not sure exactly what went wrong with Swagger. Don't know the back stage politics well enoug to know if it was something like McIntyre where he did something that turned off the WWE Officials and now they have him jobbing as 'punishment' or that he is just getting lost in the shuffle.

I'm thinking and hoping it is the latter. He's relatively young still so he could just be getting lost in the shuffle and if she sticks it out he might get his chance again. But this time, he needs to work up again slowly but surely.

Thing is, he has the right size and athleticism to be a good WWE Superstar. People say his lisp is holding him back? I don't think it is. If he plays the self absorbed heel character then he just talks about himself and doesn't care what people think yet if he is bragging and you hear a lisp then it gives fans something to geer him for. OR the other route is just giving him a mouth piece - a manager. No, not Vickie, someone else, I don't know, maybe someone like AW, a fast talking agent who can tout (pun not intended) all of Swagger's greatness. Then Swagger can show it in the ring.

I think Swagger should start back up by DEMANDING another shot at the US title and this time winning it but in a cheap way to get some more heel heat and then just start a long reign as US champ - the All American American American. The greatest Superstar to ever hold the United States Championship. And he should get mad at the fans for booing him and cheering a guy like Santino who isn't even American. And he can dis anyone else who the fans cheer who aren't American enough to be worthy of the title.

Start there and I think it would be a good place for him.

 

[Dirk]

I like ol' Thwagger. I believe he is further evidence that the 'E Universe only really care about mic skills and looks. Sure, the spiky hair looked better than this ridiculous Hitler-youth crap and he never really got over, but I believe he is on fire in the ring.

Maybe it's not too late for Swagger? He doesn't have to main event, because there isn't room for everybody and that's fine. There's nothing wrong with being jobber to the stars.

 

[Da Solo]

First off, he was pushed way too fast. From jobbing to Hornswoggle to getting clean wins over Orton and Edge and Y2J within like a week was just too much, too fast.

Second, he messed up his character after winning the MiTB. He went from being the All-American American, doing push ups and smiling and other happy cockiness to being Jericho-lite, wearing suits and speaking slow (bad idea for someone with a lisp) and trying to sound smarter than he really is. While a lot of superstars have gotten away with the Jericho-Lite act *coughMizcough*, Swagger completely sucked at it, hence his boring ass title reign. His initial character was also a Kurt Angle knock-off to begin with also, and he half-assed that as well.

Unless he improves, Swagger will and should be a career midcarder.

 

[geroge86]

A few things to be honest but none of them are really his fault. His push towards the World Heavyweight title was decided at the last minute. Originally McIntyre was slated to win MITB at Wrestlemania 26 but was considered too much of a hothead so they chose Swagger instead but didn't have enough time to build up his momentum going into it. He cashed in too soon which didn't leave enough suspense on when he cashed it in & he chose a moment that wasn't really memorable it was almost like when the hardcore title would change hands. They tried to make him too much like Kurt Angle at the time of his push so he didn't really have any originality to him. After his reign was over they sort of phased him out of the main event picture. Making him Michael Cole's bodyguard/trainer with no huge ending left him with nothing to build on. If he had finally had enough of Cole mistreating him & attacked him like A-Ry did to Miz he would've been able to branch out & become a face which would have freshened him up & they'd be able to try new things with him. They did the same thing with separating him from Ziggler & Vickie they just seem to drop him from storylines with no hype to build him up with. Some speech therapy could benefit him as well not that he has no promo skills I just think his lisp makes him less intimidating & he can't be taken seriously.

 

[justinept]

A few things before I get started:

1) Too many people in their thread have started with "I don't think anything went wrong with Swagger" ... and then preceded to list things they thought went wrong. Future posters, don't fall into this same trap.

2) His lisp has little to do with his lack of success in getting over. Mick Foley, Ric Flair and Dusty Rhodes are three of the best talkers in the history of pro wrestling. All three have a lisp. How can having a lisp effect Swagger so badly when none of the other three suffered any fallout from theirs? Answer - there's something else at work outside the lisp.

...and that would be his gross inability to take his character and make it different from any of the other muck currently on the roster. What is Swagger known for? When you think of Jack Swagger, what do you think?

When you look at the "legends" the WWE, these questions aren't difficult to answer. The Undertaker, Hogan, Austin, The Rock, HBK, Triple H, Cena, Warrior, Edge, Foley, Angle, Guerrero ... when you hear their names you think of The Deadman, hulking up, rebellion, insulting arrogance, show stopping, manipulating the system, rising above hate, unmatched energy, Rated-R material, putting your body through hell, integrity and lying, cheating and stealing to win.

Now again - What do you think of when the name Jack Swagger is mentioned? Nothing - and that's all on him. The best, most memorable wrestlers have come up with their own ideas for their character - they didn't just rely on the writing staff to give them something. Swagger didn't take that same path, and as a result, he is completely forgettable.

It's a shame, too because he certainly has the look, wrestling ability and charisma to be a main event guy.