After a blisteringly paced go-home edition of AEW Dynamite, fans of the promotion have just one more show, Rampage, between themselves and Forbidden Door, which will feature matches from Hiroshi Tanahashi and Kazuchika Okada, the Young Bucks returning to Bullet Club for one night only, and quite a few more surprises that you just know Tony Khan and New Japan head booker Gedo have up their sleeves.

While this particular show may seem like nothing more than a formality before the big show – a pre-pre-show, of you will – as Dynamite went off the air with seemingly half of the locker room cleared out for a ringside brawl while Jon Moxley stared down Tanahaski in the middle of the ring, that might not be the case. Sure, some of the matches on the show are relatively inconsequential to Forbidden Door's ultimate outcome, as a tag match featuring Sereena Deeb and Mercedes Martinez likely won't build-up to a match at a co-promotional card where one of the companies doesn't even employ female wrestlers, but there is one, in particular, that could be very interesting indeed: Hook versus DKC of NJPW's LA Dojo.

But wait, you don't know DKC? Well, guess what, you're about to find out, as he's one of the top prospects in the LA Dojo and should put on a hard-hitting affair with Father Taz's baby boy.

DKC is a perfect AEW Rampage opponent for Hook.

DKC – also known as Dylan Kyle Cox –  has been in the New Japan system since 2020, when he joined the LA Dojo after a successful run in the West Coast wrestling scene. Though he was initially trained at the Santino Bros Wrestling Academy – the school that brought fans Brody King and Jake Atlas – and worked 62 matches against the likes of Tyler Bateman, Jordan Oliver, and Slice Boogie, his career really took off when he became a Young Lion under Katsuyori Shibata, joining the likes Clark Connors and Alex Coughlin as the top American-born stars to learn at the promotion's LA-based training center.

Since debuting in the larger promotion's California-based satellite, DKC has taken on the likes of Rockey Romero, TJP, Leo Rush, Alex Zayne, and fellow Santino Bros alum Brody King, and captured a bit of a following with folks who love to watch NJPW's young lions earn their stripes – which is sort of a botched metaphor, but hey, why not go with it?

In the ring, DKC is a hard-hitter perfectly fit for the promotion's strong style roots. He can do athletic moves, sure, and may eventually attempt an airborne maneuver or two versus Hook on Rampage – assuming Danhausen doesn't break it up – but his bread and butter are the sorts of chops, strikes, and kicks that performers like Shinsuke Nakamura used to convert a legion of wrestling fans the world over into New Japan Pro Wrestling fans.

Will DKC be the first professional wrestler in the world to record an official W against Hook in the ring? No, probably not; Hook has been booked like vintage Goldberg during his initial run on Rampage and it seems incredibly unlikely that VSK's California Cousin – not really – will be the first man to pin him 1-2-3. Still, if the goal of almost any wrestling match is to put on a show for the audience assembled in the arena and at home, the AEW Rampage bout between DKC and Hook should do just that, even if the outcome is rather predictable.