Rawk Hawk

Rawk Hawk
A.K.A.	The Feral Nuclear Reactor
Species	Possibly a hawk?
Fighter Group	None
League	Champion/Major*
Hitpoints	40
Attack Power	4
Defense	0
Weak Point(s)	None

“Unh! Yeah! Yeah! Feel it! Rawk out, Great Gonzales!!! RAAAAAAAAAAAAWK! Listen to me, Gonzales! Anybody who's beat me is not ALLOWED to lose!!!”—Rawk Hawk, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door

Rawk Hawk is a fighter at the Glitz Pit. He is the second/penultimate boss Chapter 3 and overall the fifth boss of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, and later can be fought at any time. He was Champion of the Glitz Pit before being defeated by Mario.

Summery

Prior to the events that took place in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, Rawk Hawk joined the Glitz Pit, made his way up the ranks, and eventually became champion. However, he only became champion by default, since his rival, Prince Mush mysteriously disappeared before their title match could begin.

As Mario and his partners continue climbing their way up the ranks, the audience begins to take their attention away from Rawk Hawk and starts to focus on Mario and his party. Rawk Hawk, jealous, threatens them, though they continue to ignore threats. Rawk Hawk then sends Mario and his partners a poisoned cake (after they have received a real cake), which can cause Mario's partner to fall sick and thus not participate the next round.

Mario and Goombella preparing to fight Rawk Hawk.

Eventually, Mario and his partners challenge Rawk Hawk in a title match. Rawk Hawk, afraid of losing his title, decides to cheat again by having a security guard lock Mario and his partners in an abandoned minor league locker room, which would cause them to forfeit the match. However, they escape by using a toilet, and eventually confront Rawk Hawk. When the match begins, Rawk Hawk reveals himself to be responsible for the several setbacks, so they accuse him of sending that threat about the Crystal Star as well. Rawk Hawk, however, was not the one who was sending them the threatening letters, nor did he care about or was even aware of the existence of the Crystal Star. Mario and his partners then usurp Rawk Hawk's champion status. The group is then awarded with the Champ's Belt, as well as access to the Champion's Room.

Later, during the cutscene before the fight with the Shadow Queen, Rawk Hawk can be seen along with some of the other Glitz Pit fighters, cheering on Mario during one of his fights.

Personality

Rawk Hawk, throughout the course of the game, has proven himself to be extremely arrogant, egotistical, and self-centered. He constantly bragged about his skill, and looked down on the other Glitz Pit fighters, labeling everyone else around him as complete wimps. Up until Mario and his partners showed up at the Glitz Pit and made their way up the ranks, he was a hundred percent convinced that no one could defeat him. Rawk Hawk is also willing to cheat if necessary in order to win. This was shown when he had a security guard lock Mario and his partners in an old, abandoned minor league locker room before the title match started, as well as sending Mario that poisoned cake, while he honestly denied knowledge about Grubba's hate mail and the real Crystal Star. However, after Mario defeated him in battle, Rawk Hawk ended up gaining a lot of respect for him as a fighter (as he demonstrated during the Crystal Star intermission cutscene that took place during the final battle, but even then he was still showing a display of arrogance), and made a decision to fight fair and square, and to never cheat again. He also gets enraged whenever people imply that he is weak, as one of the reasons why he wanted to beat Mario no matter the cost was because he felt insulted when he heard them apparently imply that his belt was fake (although they were actually referring to the Gold Star on the belt), and also attempted to do a high kick suplex on Bowser after the latter mockingly called him an "adorable little weakling." (although he ended up being flattened by Bowser).

Attacks

During the first part of the battle, Rawk Hawk posses two different attacks, he can preform a spinning jump attack on both Mario and co., which can caused 4-points of damage if not block, and a slide kick to a character who is in front of Rawk Hawk which can also cause 4-points of damage if not block. After losing around 20 HP, Rawk Hawk will gain a new ability, which is preforming an aerial dive-bomb at the member who is in front, which can cause 6-points of damage if not block, and on the last third of his health, Rawk Hawk will gain one more attack, he will jump on the ceiling and start shaking it, which cause random objects to fall on Mario and co., and if not block, will cause 10-points of damage, Rawk Hawk can also shake a bit and drop a Mushroom, which will refill his health by 5.

Strategy

Despite Rawk Hawk's rather intimidating design and can hit hard, he's quite straight forward and isn't too difficult, tho the Player should have either the Quake Hammer, Flurrie/Yoshi Kid and/or an Attack Item such as Fire Flower, Power Quake and/or Thunder Rage to attack Rawk Hawk should he being hanging on the ceiling, as Rawk Hawk can not be reach by Jumping.

Trivia

• The American version mistakenly claims that Rawk Hawk has 3 attack and 1 defense rather than 4 attack and 0 defense. This mistake was not present in the Japanese version and was corrected in the European version.
• Rawk Hawk is always scripted to have the challenge of using a Specie Move at least once.
• Rawk Hawk is the first and only Mandatory Boss in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door that can be re-fought at any time in the game.
• Rawk Hawk shares mainly similarities to Kreepy Krow, the boss from the SNES game, Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest:
  • They both appear in a second installment of their series (Kreepy Krow: Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest, Rawk Hawk: Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door).
  • Both bosses are design after a bird (Kreepy Krow: Crow, Rawk Hawk: Hawk).
    • Additionally, their last names comes from a type of bird.
  • They both serve as the fifth bosses of their respective games.
  • Both bosses have similar move-sets, in that they both have a dive bombing attack and can also drop objects from the air.
• When Mario is the champion, he is forbidden from entering the major league locker room (or the minor league locker room), but Rawk Hawk isn't, as when Mario first enters the major league, Rawk Hawk enters the room. However, this may be because he can convince security guards to do whatever he wants, evidenced by the way he gets one to lock Mario in another locker room before their fight.
• Rawk Hawk's design and hairstyle is obviously a homage to Mr. T, one of the main characters of The A-Team.
• Rawk Hawk also has a secret training room that Bowser and Kammy Koopa find at the end of Chapter 6.
• If the Player can speak to the Freelance Cameraman in the Glitzpit late into the major leagues, he will tell them that Rawk Hawk sometimes spends days in his personal bathroom at a time for an unknown reason.