UFC lightweight Chase Hooper still looks like a 15-year-old stepping into the cage to fight grizzled veterans, but he did and beat one in Jim Miller at UFC 314 on Saturday night.
Ask Hooper (16-3-1) if he feels that way thought and it’s almost comical when he talks about being an ‘old guy’.
“Half the kids I train with are like 19 or 20 so I’m definitely feeling like the old guy now,” Hooper told reporters including Cageside Press at his post-fight scrum.
“I feel like I’ve been in this business for a while. I started fighting at 16. 9 years later here we are. I do feel old, I do feel beat up a little bit, but that’s the business.”
Coming from the Contender Series to taking out a UFC staple like Jim Miller it’s safe to say Hooper has grown up in the eyes of fans in the promotion. If you compare how he spoke in interviews when he first started in the UFC to now it’s quite clear he literally grew up in front of a crowd.
“I feel like more the outside commentators they like to bag on the UFC, but honestly this company’s given me everything. When I fought on the Contender Series I had like $34 bucks in my bank account,” he told Cageside Press.
“Now I have a wife, a baby, a house. This is providing. These couple times a year fighting I’m able to provide for my wife and daughter. I’m doing it for them now. It’s having a purpose and it’s gone from where it started out like ego and paying the bills to now doing it for them. Feels good. Feels like things are going the way they should. You don’t get the storybook thing very often in life, but I feel like we’re here.”
Watch the entire post-fight scrum with Chase Hooper above.
