4 Ups & 6 Downs From AEW Dynamite (1 Mar - Review)
3. HOOK Vs. Matt Hardy Is As Mid As You'd Expect
HOOK Vs. The Geeks Must Continue. It's been a year of this pattern. Smart Mark Sterling, Daddy Magic and Cool Hand Ang, a retconned deal with Ariya Daivari, QT Marshall, and now this.
HOOK Vs. Stokely Hathaway will be a fun little pre-show match, but that's about it. This was a waste of TV time.
The worst HOOK match by far - his sleek technical game collided awkwardly with Matt Hardy's glacial pace - it was part of a drab game played between Hardy and the Firm. Hardy is "finessing" Ethan Page, but he's also finessing Tony Khan out of valuable primetime hours.
A few hundred people conditioned into halfheartedly doing the 2016 "Delete!" chants, because it's mildly fun to do in person, is not the net result of productive episodic storytelling. This was as quiet as anything on the card, which floundered badly for much of the second hour. And that finish, f*ck off.
Matt Hardy immediately tapped for the Redrum, as was his plan. He wanted Stokely to fight HOOK. He's being devious. He smiled mischievously after the fact.
This was carny stuff. He could have actually sold one of the most protected finishes in the company and arrived at the exact same story beat by choking in pain and offering a wry shrug once the pain had subsided.
He did not.
And if HOOK was in on it, that's bad too. He associates with geeks, just like Starks, and he did nothing when Jack Perry brushed him aside.