Best Of Men’s Ski Knuckle Huck | X Games Aspen 2025

You couldn't ask for a better night for competition. Under the lights out here at Pitkin County, Colorado, Aspen Snowmass plays host to X Games once again here in 2025. As we get set to hand out yet another set of hardware, it's men's ski knucklehuck. As we take our first look at Daniel Bakker here, he owns a Big Air bronze medal. And as I mentioned earlier, this is his first time ever in knucklehuck here at the X Games. And Daniel, this suits his style. The knucklehuck is the kind of flavor he's into. And just look at that. The landing, giving us some wiggles, just got the style, making it look fun. And he walked away with a bronze medal last year in Big Air. But it came down to not him spinning a lot, but him being really creative and stylish. And that's another good example of it, buttering off the tail. That puts him in the top spot for now as we take a look, our first look at Juho Saestamonen. What? What just happened? Juho spinning like a mummy in a sarcophagus, absolutely laying that one out, hyping bio, and absolutely wrapping up. Watch, gets that safety, pulls it back in toward the tail, the Cindy, and just wrapped up, just spinning, trying to get spinning to get paid. There's the grab, comes around. I mean, what's the landing? Just, yep, no problem. Really flexing the tips and tails of your skis and showcasing the whole ability of the ski. Here is our first look at Park City, Utah's Alex Hall. He owns a goal in this event from 2020 in Norway, puts one down here in his first attempt. We're going to have to ask Alex what he calls that one. Watch this, goes in backwards, dives onto the back, looks around, hand drags. I mean, what is he doing? How do you go from sliding off of your back and just basically barrel roll over the knuckle and then flip into that? Let's take it, let's send it down to Kristen. Alex, what are you going to call that one? I heard Tom Wallace just call it a turtle slide, so we'll stick with that. Matej Swancer here. Oh, he's going fast, hand drags. Matej Swancer, hand drag, double court. He's flying, he just went like 40 miles an hour past our announce booth here. He's just flying through this course. Watch, grabs, the ski tip like catches up and he's just double corking out of that hand drag. Really hard to describe for those of you at home. You've seen these athletes on the big air jump do double corks and triple corks. He's done the switch double backflip. He's always double flipping. The most air awareness of almost anyone on the planet. Look at the speed coming in, switch. Switch off the noses to switch backflip. So the most counterintuitive, weight shifting, momentum changing thing you can do. He presses all the way across that knuckle on the tips and then changes the momentum. Take a look at this. He's on those tips and then gets the body going back. I can't describe to you how hard that is to just get that flex, that momentum. Just a signature Jesper move. If you haven't seen any of his videos, Instagram, YouTube, look this kid up. He has done the most insane things on rails and jumps that have ever been done in skiing. He is one of a kind. Just sends that one to the basement and your bronze medalist from last year jumps up to the top spot here. It's Colby Stevenson. Look at the style and the steeze. Okay, so Colby last year, he had a bunch of big tricks. Please take it into account and take strategy and kind of come up with a plan. Here he's showcasing that real long butter on the lip, on the knuckle, the whole way across, going huge, super smooth. I love the hard hat. Oh man, is this a man ramp? What is this guy's name? He's got the skate ramp. He's got the hard hat and the Texas tuxedo going with those overalls. Oh my goodness. He's to the course. Watch, lays out onto the body there. Gets all corked out, skis to the back. Just smooth, low rotations. That's what's so cool about Knucklehuck. You can see Kristen was chasing him down right there. Hopefully we'll get a report on that as we move deeper into the competition here. Alex Hall sitting in that bronze medal spot here. 12 and a half to go. Sends it all the way to the bottom of the hill for Alex Hall. From earlier, I mean, this is for him. Like this is what he wants to do. This is the flavor he likes. He's spinning out of that switch butter cork, going huge. And while Alex might be known from the general population for the 2160 that he did here at X Games, the first one ever done. Coming in hot, sitting fourth right now. This is a Matei sponsored. From Matei. Just completely blasted the camera guy with the snow shower in the crowd. Listen to that reaction from all the fans over here to our left. That is X Games mode. Two in a row, double corks off the tail. Look at that. Look at how he launches. I mean, it's so far back. He's pressing off the tails all the way at the back. Gets that grab, comes around. And now Jesper sitting in that bronze position. But here comes Jesper Shatter with a chance to answer back. Oh! Back in the jam format has us flowing so quickly. Watch this. Big set up, pushes the noses down, looks back for that tail grab. Wrapped up. I mean, and there's more. Jesper's got more. He was already in first after that first run. Very sage advice there for Mr. Stevenson. Went for the steezy run. That first go around got him to sixth place. That's over right now. OK, I mean, this one, so big. Off the noses, buttering nose to nose. So that's double butter, reaches for that mute grab, comes around. I mean, he started things off slow. He was in sixth. He's like, you know what? I'm not comfortable with that. I like to be up in the first place position with his unique tricks. And what in the world? Is that the guy in the Texas tuxedo? That's what I said. Yeah, the man ramp guy. I mean, he's got a board out or something. It looks like a piece of leftover plywood from the ops crew. And here comes Daniel Bakker. And he's just flexing over that. OK. I don't know what's worse, trying to hold onto that to make sure that the board doesn't flex so somebody could ski off of it, or the fact that he's got no sleeves on and he's just laying in the snow I mean, that was fun. And that's like the fun of this event. It's not serious. These guys take it seriously. But it's serious fun. I mean, they're having a blast. That's a huge backflip off that just man-made ramp. He's holding that piece of wood. And you're right, no sleeves, no problems. There was no flex. I'm going to get that guy at Pacifico right now. He deserves it. He didn't need it after going shoulders into the snow right there. U-Haul size devoted. He was sitting in the top three. He now finds himself in that number six position and just sends one all the way to the basement. Arms in the air. He's going off the tails, pressed out. It's really just like a tail wheelie, riding those tails, then pushing them forward. Again, like we saw Jesper do off the tips of these skis. Here we go. Alex Hall, he's sitting in the driver's seat right now. Your gold medalist from 2020 in Norway, looking at a potential second gold medal in knucklehuck here. Time still left on the clock. Going deep into the landing here again. Back country, do big air slope and knuckle. He's got it all. And just finesse with those tips. I think he's thinking maybe about rewinding that one and stopping it at switch. Instead, it's this. Here comes Matei Swansor sitting in a silver medal position. He got last year's gold medalist, Colby Stephen, on the outside looking in. Has the high speed score. Is there landing left on that one? Or did he decide, ah, I don't need it? Just look at how he winds up to get into this rotation. You kind of lose him from that angle. But right here, just the wind up to get into that spin. And yeah, you called it just the last little bit of the landing. Jesper Shatter, he was your bronze medalist last year. Looking at a potential bronze medal for right now. That's a magician reveal. Literally everybody down here in the crowd, us looking up in person, dusted the knuckle. It was a complete hockey stop. Threw him sideways, snow, and then just blew through it with a front flip. Watch this. Can't see anything. I don't know where you know where the end of the knuckle is. But that was just out of nowhere. Jesper Shatter has appeared. Brendan James says that was sick. Yeah, I completely lost it. I just looked up at the monitor, and there was just a cloud of dust. And he just emerged from the mist. But here comes your defending gold medalist on the outside looking in, trying to shake up the top three. It's Colby Stephenson. Getting that nose butter, and then getting the grab there. Going tail grab with that right hand. It's a perfect pitch. But they are taking it so far down into the flat and just slapping the ground. Watch that grab. You'll see a lot of these athletes in knuckle hook not grab and just kind of flexing it out, steezing it out. Oh! Look at how close his helmet was to the ground when he took off on the flaps. I mean, flexing the skis and where you can do so many variations of butters. Some are quick butter, and then you do a big spin. This is a long, prolonged, I can't believe it's not butter. Henrik Harlow would be proud. Watch. Look at this. I mean, just pressing the hand, the head. Right there. That's almost pretty much the Henrik it's like. That'll make your counterfeiter win. I mean, this is, yeah. I mean, flexed. That is actually the case, but that's what I'm being told as of now. So we take another look at Juho. It's nice to meet you. So I don't know if Juho found out if it's 1970s and we're doing ski ballet or if we're at the 2025 X Games knuckle hook, but his skis were crossed. He's spinning around on the knuckle. There's definitely not a name I know of for this. They are completely X'd up. Extremely dangerous to cross them up. I mean, you're absolutely crunching your groin, and then he's just spinning a bio out of this? Look at the landing. What are they feeding the kids in Finland these days? I'm saying the same thing. That jump just dumped Kobe out. Juho's on the podium. Juho's on the podium for right now. And just good to see him back up and riding, vibing with it. So fun. You can see he's got a broken ski. He's very showing it now. This ski is completely snapped to that. Yeah, we got skis busted. Full set here on this last attempt for Alex Hall. Oh, switch off, and then the revert back. Butters off, switch right side. Brings it back. Holds it, watch this. Opens up, stretches, twists the body to get it back under to switch and to the bottom. But there's a lot left and a lot of talent in this field. The Tay sponsor sitting in that silver medal spot on his last hit. Another gigantic double core going so big. Pushing each other, continuing to try these bigger and bigger tricks. Goes switch, gets it going, then finishes that whole thing back to switch. I mean, just ridiculous. I mean, he hasn't done anything but a double core. As we're bringing in Jesper Schatter. And trying to just continue to push the limits. Sitting down now as he started in such a good spot, but that's a big spin. I mean, hasn't been a lot of crashes tonight. It comes down to this last run here in men's ski knuckle hook. Coming in switch, looking for a big rotation. Obie Stevenson just kept getting faster and faster. It's cold out tonight, but that was not slowing these guys down. They are on it. Switch, then to the noses, then just corking out to the bottom. I mean, so much fun to watch. So much talent in this field. Now we play the waiting game. And there you go. Juho Saistamon is going to hang on. And Alex Hall is going to walk out of here with his second ever men's ski knuckle hook gold. Yeah, I didn't really know what I was going to do. We didn't get a ton of practice. So I was kind of just going to figure it out along the way. And I had Hunter Hess up there coaching me, Owen filming me, telling me what to do, keeping me straight. So just had fun out there.