Dan Hooker has seen it all before, and is not impressed by fighters coming into the UFC with undefeated records, fighting cherry picked opponents.
Facing Benoit St-Denis at UFC 325 in Sydney, “The Hangman” admitted that he respects his latest opponent for doing the opposite: taking some hard fights, losing, and dusting himself off.
“When he got matched with [Dustin] Poirier, France is a huge market for the UFC, and you could see they were pushing him a bit quick, they were pushing BSD a bit quick, like rushing him,” Hooker (24-13) stated during the UFC 325 media day. “And then they put him in the deep end with a guy like Dustin Poirier.”
Hooker caught that fight, and BSD’s follow-up with Renato Moicano, another high-profile loss. It’s what happened after that that stood out.
“The amount of guys I’ve seen come through during the years where, they got brought in by the UFC, they get nice cherry picked fights because they want to build something in that market, they reach the top end, the ranked fighters, the guys at the higher end of the division, and then you never see them again.”
“So he did take that loss to Poirier, and Moicano, and now he’s back,” continued Hooker. “That is something I respect. I respect that because as a guy myself who has picked myself back up the canvas, and had a couple losses and then got back on a win streak, had a couple of losses, I know how tough how tough that is. I now how much character you need as a human to pick yourself back up off the mat.”
Having been through his own trials and tribulations, Hooker added that “a guy that can take those two loses, hard losses too, finish losses, and then pick himself back up and get back on a win streak, I tip my hat.”
After his loss to Arman Tsarukyan last year, Hooker seemed to resign himself to never fighting for UFC gold. However, months removed, it appears he’s changed his tune somewhat, saying this week to “take it with a grain of salt.”
“I’m twelve hours after getting my ass kicked, I’m waking up the next day, and that’s just the frame of mind I was in at the moment.” Hooker admits that after the loss, he expected to fight down in the rankings several times. “But then they gave me BSD who’s ranked eighth in the division, on a win streak. You get past BSD, you’re not fighting anyone lower than him again. You get past BSD, you’re back in the mix.”
Watch the full UFC 325 media day appearance by Dan Hooker above.
