WWE often releases superstars who are unhappy with their standing in the company and who they tend to have no real plans for, with the latest being the likes of Tye Dillinger and Hideo Itami.Jack Swagger suffered from the same fate back in 2017, having requested his departure after months of no evident storylines for him.Swagger had a back-up plan though as he wanted to try his hand at MMA, and with a legitimate wrestling background he was always likely to start out better than the likes of CM Punk.And he impressed in his Bellator debut back in January with a first round submission win, and will fight again on May 11 in Chicago.

Going back to his time with WWE though, a lot more could've been done with the All-American, having won the ECW Championship and World Heavyweight Championship early in his career not a lot was done to capitalise on the momentum.

He challenged for the world championship at WrestleMania 29 in 2013 under the guidance of Zeb Colter, and after a period of tag teaming with Cesaro, he would then feud with the Swiss Cyborg following the dissolution of their partnership.

The years that followed saw lots of minor appearances and rivalries before he finally decided to depart in March 2017, but Swagger recently revealed on Edge & Christian's Podcast Of Awesomeness that he pitched a major feud to Vince McMahon prior to his departure, and the rejection of it that led to him deciding that his time was finally up with WWE.

"Before I left, Vince had caught me in the hallway and he told me that they were wasting me, Swagger said, per WrestlingInc.

"I said, 'Man, that's awesome to hear. Thank you for saying that. I'll be in your office next week with ideas.

"And I pitched him an idea about leaving and having me go fight MMA and come back and kind of be a little controversy between us or something and then comeback type of deal. And he didn't really want to do anything about it.

"And after that, not with him, but with everyone else, the communication really broke down, so I was like, 'okay, it's time to go,' and so [MMA] was on my mind. I wanted to do [MMA] then."

It sounds like a good feud on paper but you get the feeling that the fans would not necessarily care about Swagger unless he actually went on to become a heavyweight champion in Bellator.

If he was picked up by the UFC then maybe Swagger could gain a little momentum from the WWE fans but he would now have to do something pretty drastic if he was to become a top-level WWE star in future years.