Former WWE star Jack Swagger (aka Jake Hager) was recently interviewed by SportingNews.com where he hyped his next MMA fight against T.J. Jones at Bellator 221. Swagger would also talk a little pro-wrestling, which included his thoughts on current WWE champion Kofi Kingston, where he revealed that Kingston was always one of his favorite people to work with when he was apart of WWE.

Kofi Kingston has always been one of my favorite opponents to wrestle. He and I started back in McDonough, Georgia in 2006 in developmental at Deep South together. So, our careers have come along at the same time. He’s incredible. The way he was able to rebrand himself with The New Day has been of the best storylines in wrestling history and it will continue to get better. That moment where he had the match with Daniel Bryan where the fans demanded it where he has to fight for the title … that’s what you want. You don’t want to force anything down people’s throats. You want them to want it.

Swagger would then go on to say how proud he was of Kingston before commending him for being an incredible talent and person.

He’s one of those guys that for so long has always had an incredible talent, incredible personality and amazing Royal Rumble performances where you would see him jump on barricades and doing handstands. Any time I got into a Battle Royal with him, Kofi was the first person I would go to and say, ‘Hey, what can we do?’ [I’m] very proud of him. And to see ex-wrestlers like MVP and how happy they were for him based on the same race and everything, it’s cool. It shows you how powerful pro wrestling is that it can transcend so many political and sociological problems. You can also see that in pro fighting as well.

Check out the full interview here.