Jake Hager has taken losses inside wrestling storylines, but he says nothing hit him harder than watching his marriage and family fall apart.
The former WWE World Heavyweight Champion opened up about his divorce from Catalina White on Advice Unfiltered. Hager and White met while working in WWE developmental, where she wrestled in FCW under the name Saylor James. They married in December 2010, had two children and divorced around 2023.
The conversation started on a lighter note when Hager joked that he does not picture his ex-wife while competing in Power Slap. That joke quickly gave way to a far more serious admission about what the divorce did to him.
Hager explained that he has always built his identity around competing, winning and refusing to accept defeat. Losing his marriage was different because it tore apart the family structure he had worked to build and forced the sale of their million-dollar home.
“Honestly, though, I’m glad I can laugh about it now. But in my mind, that was the biggest loss that I ever took in my life. Like I told you, I don’t lose. To split the family up, have a million-dollar home, have to sell it for the divorce, and now the whole life changed—it was a big deal to me.”
Hager said the pain did not disappear once the divorce was finalized. He spent a long time blaming himself and resisting the reality that his life had completely changed.
“For the longest time, I couldn’t stop blaming myself. I blamed myself, and I was like, ‘This is why you’re here.’ I was hiding from the change.”
The former Jack Swagger eventually reached a point where he realized he could keep living inside the loss or force himself to rebuild. Hager now believes the opportunities in front of him are proof that he has made it through the darkest part of the collapse.
“Now I’m at a point where it’s like, ‘Oh, you don’t like this? Then f*cking do something about it and change it.’ It’s so refreshing to go through that journey because the last three years have been fucking rough on me.”
“Now that I’m here and I have so many opportunities, I can just work hard and change it. It’s so refreshing to feel like I’m there. I’m so glad to be out of the smoke.”
Hager did not try to dress the divorce up as something easy or pretend the financial damage did not matter. He described it as the biggest defeat of his life, but he is no longer letting that defeat control what comes next.
What do you make of Jake Hager calling his divorce the biggest loss of his life? Let us know your thoughts and leave your feedback in the comments.
