This kick is like the Rodney Dagerfield of kicks… It gets no respect. Especially from traditional circles.
Personally, I love it. The sheer fact that it is one of the kicks that you can adjust the distance without detracting the kick quality, and that it is super easy to go around blocks makes it one of my favourites.
It is also the top kick for defensive kicking right now. (I am seeing more and more offensive kicks being blocked in competition as people are just too used to dealing with them. However, leaning away from your opponents attack to then flick your hook kick up to the unguarded head is quite common).
Check out one in action. You can see a perfect one done at about 1:11 in the match. It doesn’t score (no clue why), but you can see a defensive hook kick done in action at the highest level:
