Jake Hager has enjoyed plenty of success in AEW as a member of The Inner Circle, and he has been involved in plenty of high-profile moments with the group. One of the most memorable highlights of his run with The Inner Circle came at AEW Double or Nothing 2021, where the stable faced The Pinnacle in a Stadium Stampede Match. Before the bout, Hager and his teammates rappelled from the scoreboard of Daily’s Place for their eye-opening entrance.
During a recent appearance on AEW Unrestricted, Hager looked back on this experience and made it clear that it was very scary. He described the climb to the top of the arena and mentioned the fear that came with this ascension before he finally reached his destination.
“Geez Louise,” said Hager. “I am afraid of heights….We like to give Chris the heat for the repelling, we all say it was his idea. And he was like, ‘No this is something that was happening.’ Going up there, like the climb up there was one of the most scariest moments of my life, one of the like toughest moments of my life because you have three flights of stairs where you’re pretty much climbing straight up, and then you have this little turnaround, and then you got another flight where you go straight up, and you got a little turnaround. And you’re going straight up and you’re looking out at Daily’s Place, you see the whole parking lot, you see the river.
“Like the wind is blowing and it’s just like one little slip — there was one moment where I was climbing up there, and I just froze and I was like alright, okay, you’re a MMA fighter, you’re a pro wrestler on live TV all the time, take the next step. Okay you made that step, good job, you didn’t fall. It was like the last three steps were pretty f—— tough. And as soon as we got in there it was like, ‘Yeah!'”
Hager then explained how, at the top of the arena, one has to secure themselves to a “little belt” to walk, and this element of the experience was particularly “terrifying.” He noted that Santana was the first member to begin their descent because the group wanted Ortiz, Sammy Guevara and Chris Jericho to be in the middle.
“And when you’re at the top, you’re at the very top, very high up,” said Hager. “You have to hook a little belt to walk, and it was either me or Santana had to go first because we wanted the other three in the middle. And they were like, ‘Alright who’s gonna go first?’ And my big six-foot-five, 265, I shrunk down, I was like 130-pounds. Santana just looks at me, he’s like ‘Alright I’ll go first….’ It was pretty terrifying.”
Ultimately, Hager made it clear that the experience was both frightening and exhilarating; he emphasized that he had a blast before he quipped that the whole group “wet [their] pants” because it was so scary.
“It’s definitely something you cannot forget, but as soon as you get pulled off the edge, it’s like a roller coaster ride, it was so much fun,” said Hager. “We all wet our pants and acted like big boys.”
The entrance in question can be seen here:
Now THAT'S an entrance! #InnerCircle #StadiumStampede#AEWDoN pic.twitter.com/n8vohYP5kX
— All Elite Wrestling (@AEW) May 31, 2021
In hindsight, The Inner Circle’s entrance at AEW Double or Nothing will go down in the group’s history as an all-time highlight, and Hager’s description of the process makes it even more meaningful.
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