Hook, undercooked

Pro wrestling is a weird cross of fandom expectations, creators knowing those expectations, then choosing to play with them. Sometimes that works. Other times it doesn't. This is the latter.

Preamble: Pro wrestling is a guilty pleasure of mine, and while I don’t usually write about it, I’ve had this topic kicking in my head for a while. When something goes from “loved, to “not so loved” it’s sometimes fun to break down exactly why that happens.

Sometimes it’s blameless. Other times, like now, there’s a couple different ways to approach who messed up most.

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Professional wrestling is interesting to me because it intersects a bunch of different fandom behaviors and expectations, and then throws them in a blender with a genuinely chaotic industry that’s probably too weird to exist. All Elite Wrestling’s Dynasty event last night reminded me of some of them, so I decided to write something.

In a typical match card, each booked bout has a specific purpose that isn’t always clear. The ability for a matchmaker to play off of fan expectations, fulfill them, or hold them just on the boundary of “still interested” is what typically makes storylines successful, and allows companies to keep up momentum.

I’d like to believe that a company knows what the fans think the purpose of a match is, and it’s up to them to decided “Yeah, that’s the catharsis we want you to get for paying attention” against “No, we want to surprise or disappoint you with the promise of greater payoff or development.”

I don’t think any company has a perfect track record with these kinds of decisions, and AEW seems to be having difficulty with this lately.

Hook vs Chris Jericho: AEW Dynasty, April 21, 2024

I have a lot to say about this match, mostly because I was a really big fan of Hook. I don’t hate him now, but the bandwidth to overlook a green and new wrestler because he had something interesting has now run out, and I’m starting to view his downsides a lot more critically.

I think my turning point for him was his match against AEW World Champion, Samoa Joe. For context, Hook was/is a very new wrestler driven to prominence by a meme of him being a much better wrestler than he is. While he’s good in a specific style, he’s not complete in a way that comes with experience. That’s alright, and even acceptable: sometimes you just have a rookie that gets shoved somewhere beyond their station because the fans are willing it. Ultimately, it comes down to them sink or swim, and I don’t know who to blame for feeling like Hook is sinking.

Hook challenges Samoa Joe — noted veteran, and destroyer of worlds — to a match for the AEW World Heavyweight Championship. No fan in their right mind believes Hook will win. So again, we ask, “what is the match’s purpose?”

Hook barely talks. This is by design. His aura is specifically tapping into being a suplexing machine like his father, Taz (currently an AEW commentator). We want Hook to succeed, partially because we enjoy Taz being proud of his son, commentating his matches, and passing on a lot of his moveset. Hook isn’t a straight nepotism hire, but his aesthetic leans heavily on being geared toward a younger demographic than even the other “young guys” on the AEW roster.

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Darby Allin was born in 1993. Hook was born in 1999. Those six years are a world of difference to what is considered “cool.” Hook not talking adds to that mystery, and adds to that “cool.” Hook punching above his weight and holding his own contributes to that “cool.” People like Hook, even if he’s green.

So he challenges the World Heavyweight Champion, and part of the positive reaction to that is the validation of what fans like: if someone is facing a champion, we are supposed to suspend our disbelief and imagine that they have a chance of becoming a champion. Which means, in wrestling’s fucked up logic, the company would not put Hook in this match if they didn’t see what we see. That feels good.

We get excited when we see Hook’s vignettes in the leadup to the match because they feel specifically influenced by hip-hop, streetwear, influencer aesthetic. We don’t know if Hook would want us as his friends or be the person shoving us into the locker, but until we find out more, we’re inclined to think that he’d appreciate our support as fans.

Hook is massively outmatched against Joe. He is easily over 100lbs lighter than him. Hook doesn’t talk much in the vignettes or the leadup. He gets utterly smashed against Joe, despite some small, small rays of hope. But that’s okay. The logical fan brain butts in and says “This kid is 24 and barely talks. They aren’t going to make him champion and the face of the company.”

We knew the match’s outcome before it started, but because of a connection we have with a character, we choose to believe. We know that Hook won’t be champion, but if he’s good enough during the match, the company will see more of what we see: if the match is good, (and it was), we as fans have a reason to believe we’ll be rewarded for our support with more opportunity for our favourite in the future.

And then it all went downhill.

(That strut is all you need to know about Joe).

Armchair booking

It’s really easy to play fantasy matchmaker/bookmaker in wrestling, so I’m going to get it out of the way: I think Hook’s path after his first “big time” match was bungled horribly, and I’m going to explain what I think would’ve been better.

After the Joe match, Hook came out the next week, said, “I lost, but I’m still going to come at you for my belt.” His voice was over-acted. He sounded like a sitcom “stereotypical white rapper” which damaged his aura. He was forcing it too hard.

This was the first moment of “Oh, uh. That’s not that good” for me. A couple things made it harder to see through Hook being green in that moment:

1. Hook was not competitive in his match. He had some great moments, but the match was largely defined by “he is getting his ass kicked and showing fire by not immediately losing. He has no chance of winning, but it’s admirable that he’s not giving up.”

2. Hook didn’t show any kind of humility during or after the loss. The “I’m not going to give up or tap out until I pass out and the ref stops the match” storyline is only good if you don’t immediately go “Is that all you got?” when the crowd can tell you’ve been thoroughly defeated. “Kid, stay down” has two tones here: there’s concern and pity. Regardless of the storyline, the crowd should not pity the kid who’s made a dumb decision. And then Hook did it AGAIN.

3. Hook didn’t have any kind of processing about how or why the loss happened, or how he’d grow from it. Because he barely talks in the first place, we never really got a sense of how he felt, or what he would do in order to become a better wrestler.

That last part is what stuck with me, because Hook largely has been formulaic and frankly, boring since then.

Hook held the AEW FTW (“Fuck the World”) Title for 238 days in his second reign (losing it last night). This was largely a vanity title for him, as it didn’t fit his character — it was a title for hardcore matches where Hook is sold as “I’m going to suplex you a lot.” His father, Taz, competed for Extreme Championship Wrestling, where he minted the FTW Title originally. Taz was a killer who suplexed people, yet was credible in deadlier matches. Hook isn’t quite there yet.

The “son holds the same belt” thing was supposed to feel good, but it became something that kept Hook stagnant and frequently in matches that didn’t showcase his strengths. Since the Joe match, he competed against a former teammate over that title, including him competing solo in a one-against-two match where he defeated two bigger wrestlers. When he faced Chris Jericho last night, again, it was in a hardcore match that didn’t leave me feeling like Hook had the spotlight. Tables, chairs, kendo sticks and garbage cans can hide a wrestler’s weaknesses, but they should also highlight strengths.

After last night, apparently Hook’s contract has expired with AEW, and I’d hope that he would be staying with the company. However, the last few months could have look really different for him with “how I would’ve done it,” but maybe would’ve ended up with the same outcome: Hook taking some time away from AEW to learn, reflect, and grow.

Wrestling is a complicated industry because you don’t just join a dojo and emerge complete. For many wrestlers, your job is to go other places, spend time learning from other people, and learning by losing. While Hook was trained in a reputable place, and probably lost his fair share of practice matches, he (rightfully) rode the wave of memetic support to win his debut, and then win a lot more in the process.

When he lost to Joe, he only had one singles loss on his record; this made it all the more important to process his next, important loss properly. Again, he didn’t — he brushed it off, and it was off to other things.

Rewind

My fantasy booking has Hook acting a bit differently:

The pre-match and match happen identically. Hook is confident, but not outwardly saying he’s “the greatest.” Since fans can only suspend their disbelief so far, it’s safe to not test it too much.

The post-match plays out differently. Joe chokes out Hook. Instead of Hook goading Joe twice — again, without having really “earned” the ability to do so — and then needing to get saved from his own idiocy by “Hangman” Adam Page, he just lays there.

The storyline of the match, as the commentators tell us, is “Joe probably did not think that he needed to work that hard to get this win.” Hook not letting that moment sit robbed us of the moment where Joe goes “Huh, I guess this kid has a little bit of my respect.”

That validation is something we, as fans crave from bad guys like Joe, and by extension, the company. Hook being an idiot and begging to be beaten down more, then getting saved by someone else, essentially says “Yeah this kid is being an idiot, let’s save him from the responsibility of his own choices and bail him out so he doesn’t get hurt.”

That decision robs Hook of the consequences of his actions — facing those consequences is something that Good Guys in wrestling do. It also utterly erases any kind of development for Joe or Hook.

1. Joe could’ve come away from the match with a begrudging respect, validating the fans

2. Hook could’ve come away from the match realizing he was utterly outclassed, which tells the fans “Joe is a bad mother fucker, and Hook has some growing to do”

So again, in my fantasy booking, Hook is laying there. No Hangman, no rescue, no “is that all you got?” The broadcast is solely focused on Joe, and letting him tell us what we should take from that. Are we proud of Hook? Discouraged? Do we see a brighter future?

Next week on Dynamite, instead of a dumb face-off with terrible acting, Hook tells us something simple: “I bit off more than I could chew. Joe is the man — for now. You might not see me for a bit, but you should know that I’m seeing just how big this sport is, and I know I’m going to have to grow to climb to the top of it.”

That is the perfect opportunity to do a couple things:

1. Get Hook off TV for a bit and get people excited to see him again

2. Get Hook on a tour of Japan, Mexico, or the UK in order to build his skills

3. Let the possible consequences of this match simmer

Joe looks like a badass, Hook has the possibility for growth, and shows us that he grew by being humble in the face of his worst defeat yet.

This kind of “take time away and learn” seems like poison, but it works for so many wrestlers across so many countries because they get a chance to break away from what they perceive themselves as, and learn about what they might want to become.

Hook is more than Taz’ son, and unfortunately, that’s what he’s fallen into by staying stagnant.

Dynasty

I don’t have too much to say about Hook vs Jericho because I was mostly confused about that question: what was the purpose of this match?

Their storyline feud is summarized as follows:

1. Jericho wants to mentor Hook

2. Hook, indignant, says Jericho screws over his mentees

3. Jericho tries to force this relationship because he believes Hook can be truly great

4. Hook doesn’t want the help. He dresses like a bad pastiche of a zoomer, and over-acts every word that’s out of his mouth.

5. Jericho does something borderline scummy (or outwardly scummy) out of frustration

6. Hook is driven further away

This went on for far too long before this match got to end it. After a pretty 5/10 hardcore match, Jericho hit Hook with a baseball bat, despite repeatedly saying “I’m sorry [I don’t want to do this]” for dramatic effect. That being done twice in a row was really lame.

Hook flipped him off instead of surrendering. Jericho insisted that this be a “learning experience” and won the match. Hook doesn’t have a championship anymore. Jericho has a championship that’s utterly meaningless for him long-term. I doubt everyone is happy.

Jericho is a bit of an odd duck with AEW because of his current stature as a wrestler. While the novelty and utility of having a “big act” in early AEW was clear, we now have a lot of those, and Jericho still maintains a large spot on broadcasts when he isn’t producing as much value. He’s also hit that “too old to have slightly worse versions of the matches we liked him having” patch that other veterans don’t have due to the benefit of being just slightly out of their primes, rather than completely out of them.

Also, we hit another one of those weird wrestling behaviours: we, as fans, know the political position inside the company that Chris Jericho holds. We know he isn’t going anywhere. We are tired of him, but he refuses to give us time to miss him. Instead of being excited at him helping a younger talent and elevating them in the broadcast, he seems like a vampire that feeds off of momentum.

There’s a (joking, yet unfair) belief that he views a younger talent getting hot, and then inserts himself into a storyline with them and leaves them worse off than they entered. Because we, as fans, know he has the power to do this due to the position in the company, we resent him even more. His job is to be a veteran and be smart enough to know when to leave something to grow organically, and we perceive (regardless of the truth) that that is what’s happening.

I put all these metaphorical asterisks in the above paragraphs because it’s unlikely he’s being malicious in doing this; part of the fun of wrestling is that veil of “not quite knowing for sure” and building your own (hopefully harmless) perception.

It’s much easier to be uncharitable with that perception when it messes with the thing we like, and keeps it from being the thing we like.

In closing

I hope Hook doesn’t go to NXT. I think he has a good future in AEW, but I think his super push should be over.

I hope Jericho takes a cue and retires the FTW Title, which is utterly useless to anyone right now, and contributes to the Championship bloat in AEW.

I hope AEW send Hook somewhere like New Japan, Dragon Gate, Pro Wrestling NOAH, or CMLL, where he can not be pressured to live up to the hype of his debut. I hope he can learn a bit, and refine his style if he is going to keep wrestling the way he does. I hope he stops getting dumb tattoos and wearing dumb clothes that ruin his look.

I hope AEW keeps taking chances with storytelling that feels authentic and real like his pre-Joe-Match vignettes did. I hope they keep letting opportunities for things to not feel same-y happen.

I hope you don’t think this post is too jaded or cynical: it’s more just dumping thoughts out of frustration at something not working for me when it did at one point.

I hope we still get great wrestling from AEW. That one doesn’t seem like too much of a stretch.

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