Dan Hooker wasn’t familiar with UFC Paris opponent Salahdine Parnasse’s game prior to being booked into the card’s main event with the French star.
He quickly recognized Parnasse’s talent. “I see what all the fuss is about,” Hooker (24-14) stated during this week’s UFC Paris media day.
Hooker is faced with a fighter in Parnasse who is making his debut on a big stage, with lots of hype. The Frenchman is a former KSW double-champ, and big things are expected of him. Admitting that he’s faced good competition in the past, “The Hangman” suggested the biggest factor in the fight might be timing. Primarily his own.
“I just feel like right now, the timing for me, is right now I’m very motivated, I’m very locked in, and I’m in a very good place,” stated Hooker. “I feel like had I been fighting Salahdine the way that I prepared for the BSD [Benoit Saint-Denis] fight, he’s beating me ten times out of ten. But tonight, or when we fight in a couple of days, this is the best condition I’ve ever been in in my life. So I’m excited to go out there and perform.”
Hooker acknowledged that had Parnasse met him in the past couple of years, “I feel like he could potentially get his hand raised. But I feel like the condition, and the mind set, and the focus that I have right now, it’s not going to be his night.”
New Zealand’s Hooker has called the UFC Paris main event a “crossroads fight,” and it’s worth noting that he enters it having lost two straight. A third consecutive loss could drop him from the rankings.
“It’s a serious fight to get things back on track,” Hooker admitted this week. “I love doing this, I love to compete here in the UFC, I love to fight, and I want to fight against the best guys. And do to do that, you have to win fights. You have to win fights.”
“You can’t consistently lose fights, or they tell you to take off them gloves and wrap these things up. So I need to silence a lot people, I need to answer a lot of questions, I need to go out there, perform at the level that everyone expects of me, and we just right the ship. We right the ship, and we get things back on track.”
Watch the full UFC Paris media day appearance by Dan Hooker above.
