Hookers

When pinning an opponent, a pro wrestler “hooks” (or grips behind the knee) one of the opponent’s legs.  If a wrestler fails to hook the leg, and the opponent kicks out, the commentators will say: “Well he should’ve hooked a leg, he would’ve won the match.”  (Never mind that many, many, many pinned wrestlers kick out even when their leg is hooked.)

Is it true that hooking a leg makes it harder for the pinned wrestler to kick out?  Let’s think about the physics of that…  One thoughtful observer called shenanigans on the idea that hooking a leg adds pinning leverage:

“Trying to push someone off you using your hands/arms is harder than using your legs muscles… leg muscles are damn strong.

So if you think about if someone is lying on top of you with your legs hooked.. the sheer force of pushing them off using just the legs propelled/spring out would interrupt the pin easier than trying to lift a dead weight off you using just your arms...

“Most peoples leg muscles will be stronger than someones arms and no matter how tight there grip and hold if someone springs there legs out full force it is going to move them enough for you to get your shoulder off the ground for at least a second.”

So if Hooking The Leg does NOT make it harder to kick out (actually makes it easier for him to shift your weight off by thrusting the hooked leg forward), then WHY do wrestlers go to the trouble of hooking a leg in about 75% of pinning attempts??

Our thoughtful observer believes it makes it clear to the ref and the viewing audience that THIS is meant to be a pinfall:

“My answer would be that the hooking of the leg is purely to initiate the pin in peoples eyes, as we have seen wrestlers fall on each other from time to time after a move but being tired take a second or two to get off them and the pin count hasn’t started…  A lot of the time no pin count begins until they hook the leg.”

What is the true reason for this odd pinning ritual?  From a Queer Theory perspective, the dominant male hooks a leg to imply penetration of the bitch/loser.  The winner is presented as the (hetero) ideal man — never in a position to be penetrated.  If his crotch is visible, it is presented as a threat, implying he has the girth and leverage to penetrate the victim he has subdued.

The loser is shown to be weak and submissive, the fuck toy, the failure of capitalist hetero-normative manhood, the compliant sissy.

Having a leg hooked, his thighs are separated, his taint is presented, his ass is up, he is open to penetration and unable to defend himself.

The pinned wrestler — Curtis Axel in this case — is emasculated by his dominant opponent in the yellow gear.  Utterly helpless and weak, Axel is presented as defenseless against the winning wrestler (who yanks his legs apart and knees him in the cock.)  The weak, less-manly loser is held in this degrading position for several seconds, spread-eagled to emphasize his powerless position.

Here the camera ponders the defeated man’s vulnerability, panning across his exhausted, motionless body and impotent bulge. His body is hairless, even his armpits, to further feminize him.  Our culture equates movement, violence, and success with manhood, so the point of the elaborate pinning ritual is to demonstrate that losers are bitches and bitches are losers.

Our take-away is that we have only two choices in life: either accept the role of the aggressive, domineering, straight, bread-winning, capitalist Male, or be forever humiliated, defeated, sissified, isolated, and fucked as punishment for not being Man Enough.