Jack Swagger’s Controversial Bellator 221 Win, Sheamus In Bad Shape

– Jack Swagger (real name Jake Hager) was a huge favorite heading into his Bellator 221 fight as he easily scored the first round victory. Minutes into the opening round, Swagger made T.J. Jones tap to an arm-triangles choke, but the moments that followed left the crowd upset.

After Jones tapped, the referee has to forcibly push Swagger off of Jons to release the hold and then had some words for the former WWE superstar. After the win, Swagger cut a somewhat strange and heel type promo, which saw the camera cut to black after only a few sentences in.

“You all can boo me all you want because you’re not in here right now,” said Swagger. “I’m rock hard right now with emotion. I’ve got a boner.”

Below is the finish from Swagger’s win, which now makes him 2-0, and the post-fight interview.

– Sheamus is currently out of action since the week following WrestleMania 35 with a concussion. He has also been dealing with a bad neck for at least two years. Sheamus has been diagnosed with spinal stenosis, which is serious. It led to Edge and Steve Austin having to retire.

Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp commented on how people are worried about Sheamus’ feature inside the ring and were shocked he was able to work WrestleMania 35.

“I had heard last year that there were a lot of people that were surprised that Sheamus could still wrestle as effectively as he could considering some of the injury issues and the pain that he had been in,” said Sapp. “Honestly, the thing I was told by one wrestler was that if he got through WrestleMania that would be really awesome. Not as if they were hoping that or the company was hoping that, but that wrestler personally was hoping that Sheamus could get through this WrestleMania and he did and that was about it. No update yet, but man, with a bad neck and then you get a concussion on top of that, that’s not hot.”

At WrestleMania, Sheamus teamed with fellow The Bar member Cesaro, losing a fatal four-way RAW Tag Tag Championship match. During the Superstar Shake-Up, Cesaro was sent to RAW and there was no mention of Sheamus, so he is currently still listed on the SmackDown brand.