UFC Lightweight Chase Hooper will look to score back-to-back wins as he takes on Jordan Leavitt at UFC Fight Night 232 on November 18, 2023.
The 24-year-old made the decision to move up a weight class for his last fight, where he picked up a dominant decision victory over Nick Fiore back in May.
“The Dream” spoke to Cageside Press about why he made that decision to move up to 155lbs.
“Honestly, I’ve been fighting puberty this whole time. The weights been going up every single time. I remember my Contender Series fight, I think I was walking around at 165lbs so I was 20lbs out from the featherweight limit.
“The weight just kept going up and then I started walking around at closer to 185lbs and cutting 40lbs to make weight is not super sustainable and my body stopped wanting to lose that weight.
“I knew for my last featherweight fight, I don’t want to cut this anymore, I can barely do it now and I feel like the amount that I was putting my body through was too hard to try and recoup and recover from.”
Hooper stands at 6’1″ tall so is by no means undersized at 155lbs, and will in fact have a four inch height advantage over his upcoming opponent, Jordan Leavitt.
“The Monkey King” is coming in off an impressive first round finish over Victor Martinez back in February.
When the fight was announced, Hooper admitted that it was a matchup he’s had his eye on for a while, and he gave his opinion on Leavitt as a fighter and personality.
“It’s just a stylistic matchup, there’s so many wrestlers and so many great strikers in the UFC, but there’s not many great Jiu-Jitsu based grapplers. I mean Jordan started more on the wrestling side but he’s definitely got that 10th planet kind of weird no gi tinge to his grappling.
“He’s fought some high level guys, he’s fought Paddy, he’s fought Claudio Puelles, they’re pretty high level grapplers. I just want to test my grappling against a guy that’s been in there with some other great grapplers.
“I would like to work my way up the unofficial best jiu-jitsu guy at lightweight rankings.”
Watch our full interview with UFC Vegas 82’s Chase Hooper above.
