10 Biggest AEW Creative Mistakes
9. Pairing HOOK With Danhausen
Danhausen is a strange character to accurately judge. Is he effective or not?
He generates a pop in most arenas, has an in-built cult audience, and has shifted significant amounts of merchandise thus far in his AEW tenure. It doesn't matter if you're charmed by his abstract gimmick or think of it as an unfunny retread of the worst of Chris Jericho's Attitude Era patter - haha, he gets their bloody names wrong, what's he like? - because those objective metrics are what matter. The thing is, as much as Danhausen is good at getting Danhausen over, he's something of an anti-rub.
Look no further than HOOK for that.
'HOOKhausen' seemed to exist because, by contrasting the characters, HOOK would appear even more like a badass. In reality, HOOK was lowered to Danhausen's inessential level and his killer prodigy aura was diminished. That, or AEW wished to "develop" HOOK's character.
In any event, it was a major error - another strange attempt to make a "cute" connection. AEW enjoys "wholesome content", but this was not the time for it. The memories of HOOK murdering people are disintegrating.
AEW is currently in the process of rebooting HOOK, even implying that he's orbiting a title picture of some sort, so this may be a slight misstep rather than one of their biggest creative mistakes - but if they don't course correct, it will scan as a disaster.