HOOK is back.
Former FTW Champion HOOK had been absent since Chris Jericho threw a fireball in his face on the July 3 episode of AEW Dynamite. Alongside Katsuyori Shibata and Samoa Joe, he had been feuding with Jericho and The Learning Tree.
On the August 7 episode of AEW Dynamite, Shibata beat Bryan Keith of The Learning Tree. After the match, Jericho and Big Bill attacked Shibata. The Learning Tree ganged up on Shibata, but HOOK ran in and made the save. He brawled with The Learning Tree and sent them running.
Jericho previously took out Samoa Joe by driving him through a wall while on a forklift. Joe has been absent ever since.
Chris Jericho On The Learning Tree
Throughout HOOK’s feud with The Learning Tree, Jericho and the group have often been criticized. However, Jericho has said that the stable helps people move up the ladder, as he explained on The Creative Imbalance.
“I knew when we first started it that portraying it one way and kind of reeling people in to thinking it’s more of an almost a buffoon sort of thing,” Chris Jericho said. “Until the axe falls and you realize, ‘Oh, these guys are not funny. This is real and serious. It’s ’American Psycho’ meets ‘The Devil’s Rejects.’ Now we have a whole different character, a whole different mindset. And yeah, polarizing if you want to say that or whatever the word may be. The bottom line is, it delivers. It’s one of the top-rated segments on the show every week.
“People are into it, and as much as people cry from the hills they want to behead Chris Jericho and keep me off planet earth and send me off in space in a shuttle, that’s a very small amount of people. I just go by what are the people reacting to in the venue, what are they watching? Once again, we’ve got a hit character with a lot of potential that’s helping a lot of different people move up the ladder and that’s kind of what it’s all about.”
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