Hathaway’s first match in AEW was against HOOK.
As a part of a storyline centered around The Firm in AEW, Stokely Hathaway went one-on-one with HOOK on the March 22nd edition of Dynamite on TBS.
It was a No-DQ match and HOOK bested Hathaway in three minutes. Hathaway recounted the match during his appearance on Talk Is Jericho.
He said before the match, he told Taz, HOOK’s father, that he was going to shoot on HOOK and pin him clean. Taz stared at Stokely and then proceeded to start laughing.
Right before we went out, I told Taz that I was gonna shoot on HOOK and pin him clean and then Taz looked at me with like a death stare and then he laughed so… Taz would’ve hit the ring, HOOK would’ve choked me out. Yeah, yeah. They just would’ve jumped me in Kansas City.
Commenting on his time in WWE, there was in instance when multiple producers asked Stokely could he change what he was doing with his eyes on television. He explained to them that there’s nothing he can do about it because his eyes get big at times.
It was one promo I cut and this was in NXT and it was like the next week, I had like six different producers and agents come up to me and they were like, ‘Hey man, can you do something about your eyes?’ And I was like, ‘What?’ And they were like, ‘Yeah. It’s just, you know, they get a little big at times’ and I was like, ‘Well, that’s just my eyes. I can’t really do anything unless I get surgery and if you wanna pay for it, sure’ but, yeah. It’s been a blessing and a curse (having ‘crazy eyes’).
This week on AEW Rampage, ‘The Firm Deletion’ match is taking place at the Hardy Compound and it’ll be Matt Hardy, Jeff Hardy, HOOK and Isiah Kassidy versus The Firm (Stokely Hathaway, Ethan Page, Big Bill & Lee Moriarty).
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit Talk Is Jericho with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.