HOOK is extremely serious about his professional wrestling career.
The fan-favorite star has quickly become one of the biggest stars in All Elite Wrestling, in big part to social media being set ablaze every time the 22-year old appears on the company’s programming. The fan-favorite, alongside his father, AEW commentator Taz as well as AEW President Tony Khan took part in an interview with Mashable to discuss HOOK’s rise in popularity.
“I didn’t know that Punk was going to call me out, I was taken by surprise,” HOOK admitted when asked about CM Punk’s famous ‘Send HOOK’ call-out on the October 6, 2021 edition of AEW Dynamite. “It was crazy. It was wild. It’s weird being the subject of something like that because this is serious to me. This is my career. But at the same time, that internet is what is such a driving force in today’s world.”
“This was a collaboration that the internet didn’t know they were involved with,” Taz said about social media’s infatuation with his son. “This thing started to build up and this is going to sound corny, but it’s a fact — everything that Team Taz has done was calculated. You’re on a worldwide level here. This is big time stuff and you have to take every opportunity. He became a meme, this is funny. It’s a joke. Ha Ha. And I would say to people in AEW, ‘Wait until they see this guy go in the ring.’ Within 30 seconds, they’re going to realize he’s no effing joke, right? It was surreal, to be honest with you,” continued Taz about being able to be on commentary for his son’s in-ring debut. “The whole thing was surreal.”
Khan also told Mashable that fan interaction changed creative plans for HOOK, who Khan says was never originally supposed to be involved in any in-ring work.
“He wasn’t actually wrestling in matches, he was mostly appearing in the background. But he got a big response from the fans, and his cult following grew and grew.”
Time will tell what the future holds for HOOK’s career in AEW, but it’s clear that he has plenty of fans rooting him on.
