YMMV / Jack Swagger

• Awesome Music: "Patriot", his final theme in WWE, which he first used at Elimination Chamber 2013 and kept when he and Cesaro formed the Real Americans stable.
• Badass Decay: After he came back in 2013, he went from a jobber to the number one contender for the World Heavyweight Championship. Then, he got caught with marijuana in real life, and now he's jobbing to the Prime Time Players and Great Khali. Swagger's case is of special note because of his status as a former world champion — anyone who has ever had that distinction has managed to stay in the lower midcard at the very least no matter how deep in the doghouse they were. Even the Great Khali maintained some of his dangerous aura due to his size. Swagger, however, could lose to someone like Heath Slater or Curtis Axel and absolutely no one would be surprised. He, without a doubt, has fallen further down the card than any other former world champion in the history of the company.
• Base-Breaking Character: He's become this really bad ever since he separated Bad News Barrett's shoulder. Is he a really strong man who has simply been the victim of bad luck involving other competitors? Or is he a sloppy, lazy performer who doesn't do nearly enough to protect the people he's going at in the ring?
• Broken Base: Is Jack Swagger a great wrestler who should be pushed? Is he a bland wrestler and a terrible promo who should be buried? (The latter at least, was mended among detractors when he was given a manager)
• Creator's Pet: He's a decent wrestler who's in good shape but rather boring to watch and with a lisp that severely affects his promos. He got two absolutely random main event pushes, the first of which being his Money In The Bank win in 2010. After roughly about three months as World Champion, he dropped it and was never in the title picture again. Then in 2013 he returned after a long absence and got another push for the title, this one he didn't win. Most fans find him boring to watch, especially when he is frequently overshadowed by his more talented partner Antonio Cesaro.
• Fridge Brilliance:
  • Upon his return as a decidedly racist "Real American" his first opponents were, an Italian (Santino Marella), a Ghanaian (Kofi Kingston), and an Italian-American "Guido," (Zack Ryder) all of whom his character would despise. And to top it all off, his first feud in his persona was against the Mexican Alberto Del Rio. Of course, Mexicans are usually the first nationality some people think of when the immigration argument pops up.
  • The fact that WWE seems to have simply glossed over Jack Swagger's marijuana infraction? On an out-of-story level, it's probably because they didn't want to be forced to throw together an alternate storyline so close to Wrestlemania. But it is worth noting that one of the views typically associated with the Tea Party (who WWE is parodying with the Swagger/Coulter gimmick) is the legalization of marijuana.
• Memetic Mutation: WEED THE PEOPLE!
  • Three words: Jake Hager's hat.
• Misaimed Fandom: Some people, including political commentators like Alex Jones, ended up believing that Swagger and Colter were supposed to be right/babyfaces. Suffice it to say... No. That was never the intended response to their gimmick (at least not when they were racist xenophobic heels). This actually prompted WWE to respond by having Colter and Swagger film a promo video in-character only to break character to address the people involved with this directly.
• Moment of Awesome: Him winning the Elimination Chamber in 2013, going over Chris Jericho, Mark Henry, Daniel Bryan, Kane and Randy Orton ALL AT ONCE.
• Older Than They Think: The Real Americans might have invoked memories of National Wrestling Alliance tag team "The Real American Heroes", which would make Swagger the (admittedly much larger) counterpart to Joey Ryan.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: In 2011, when Swagger was allied with Michael Cole during the latters feud with Jerry Lawler, Cole insulted Swagger, which caused him to walk away from Cole and let Lawler to do what he wished to with Cole. Was this a face turn? Nope. Later in the night he was guy Miz had chosen as an opponent for Cena that night on Raw, and attacked Cena before their match.
• Unexpected Character: His appearance at the end of the premiere episode of AEW Dynamite certainly took a lot of people off guard- he was still an easily recognisable face to most serious wrestling fans, but with a lot of people expecting a big surprise debut at the end of the episode, pretty much nobody would have picked him for AEW's first big surprise debut of their TV era.
• Unnecessary Makeover: In 2012 he changed his hair from a cool looking spiky style to a rather unflattering combover that many fans refer to as the Choir Boy Cut◊. His messy hair after coming back in 2013 wasn't much better◊.