It was a fight that did not take long to play out, and when it did, it was in explosive, violent fashion.

Hooper went after a leg in the opening minute, with Gibson hopping on one foot, smashing away with elbows, and eventually breaking free as Chase tried to protect his head.

Moments later, after re-engaging, an elbow stunned Hooper, leaving him on skates. Gibson followed up with a pair of head kicks, which didn’t put Hooper away, then connected with a knee that left Chase reeling. Hooper dropped down for a leg, but Gibson was still on him. The ref didn’t like the look of things, and soon moved in waving the fight off. Fans at the Climate Pledge Arena were far some thrilled with the result, voicing their opinion at seeing the local kid put away. That said, Hooper didn’t protest the stoppage, and remained on his knees for a bit after the fact.

After the fight, Gibson, a Canadian who was actually born in Seattle and is a second-generation UFC fighter, was emotional in talking about dreaming of getting to fight at an arena in the city.

With proud pop Lance Gibson Sr. and stepmom Julia Budd, a former Bellator champ, in his corner, Gibson Jr. got to live out a dream on Saturday, clinching his first UFC victory in style.

Official Result: Lance Gibson Jr. def. Chase Hooper by TKO, Round 1, 2:56

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Hernandez (17-8) has had a rather inconsistent run in the UFC thus far. Wins are separated by two-fight losing skids and momentum has been scarce, but this recent run of victories he attributes to his team.

“I’ve had a f*ck load of setbacks. Mr. Setback himself. I throw it back to the boys, I really do,” Hernandez told reporters including Cageside Press at his post-fight scrum.

“I’ve really matured into a good place mentally and physically.”

Being from San Antonio the upcoming Noche UFC card in September would be ideal for his return. For more reasons that just fighting of course.

“I expect to at least show up. The coolest thing is to show out, and get a fat finish in your city. Then next thing is just being able to pull up, get sh*t faced, and get paid to hang out with the team and the city,” he said.

“Either way I’m cool. Let me just show up and get some money while I’m in San Antonio.”

Watch the entire post-fight scrum with Alexander Hernandez above.

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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.

The post Chase Hooper Feels Like The ‘Old Guy’, Grateful To Be Able To Support Family appeared first on Cageside Press.

Miller (38-18) has accolades and records that could take an entire article on their own. He’s faced the who’s who at 155-pounds including known names such as Donald Cerrone, Clay Guida, Nate Diaz, and Benson Henderson to name a few. Now he makes his way through the younger crop of lightweights as he continues his run.

Hooper (15-3-1) came into the fight on a four-fight win streak including victories over Clay Guida and Viacheslav Borshchev. The 25-year-old was arguably facing his biggest test in Miller in Miami.

ROUND 1: Hooper ducked under a left straight to land a left elbow that connected. He then landed a right hook from and Miller answered with a left hand. It didn’t take too long for these two to start grappling as Hooper shot a single leg. Miller snatched his patented guillotine, but Hooper defended it and ended up on the bottom. He threw a triangle attempt but Miller was wise to it. Miller attempted another guillotine as Hooper shot a takedown, but Hooper popped his head out. ‘The Dream’ transitioned to take Miller’s back as he was standing back up. Miller eventually shook him off, but Hooper immediately threatened with an arm bar as he was sliding down. Hooper was super active off his back, throwing another triangle attempt that Miller successfully defended. Some wild grappling exchanges in the first round, as expected.

ROUND 2: The second round started with the two southpaws mainly exchanging left hands down the middle. A takedown from Hooper along the fence got Miller down and the youngster found his way to the veteran’s back once again. ‘A10’ eventually got out of the position but a trip from Hooper got the fight right back down to the mat. Once again, Miller wrestled his way back up, but the 25-year-old was on point with his mat returns. In the final minute, the two found their way into an unusual leg entanglement that appeared to have the veteran in pain, but his toughness allowed him to survive until the horn. Round 2 was a much more dominant one for Hooper.

ROUND 3: Hooper shot a telegraphed takedown just 20 seconds into the final frame that Miller easily defended. With Miller clearly the more exhausted of the two, Hooper got the fight down on his second shot of the round. Hooper worked his way to the same leg entanglement that they were in at the end of the last round. With Hooper having full control of Miller’s left leg, the commentary team thought that he might have been setting up a twister, but he instead opted for top position. Hooper spent the final minute in complete control, landing some elbows for good measure. A very encouraging performance from the young Hooper as he won the rounds in more dominant fashion as the fight went on.

Coming back-to-back victories over Clay Guida and Jim Miller, Hooper used his octagon interview to call for a bout with a fighter in his age range, naming Fares Ziam and Tom Nolan as potential matchups.

Official Result: Chase Hooper def. Jim Miller by Unanimous Decision (30-27, 29-28, 29-28)

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The youth versus experience divide in the lightweight fight is practically a grand canyon-sized gap, but Hooper (15-3-1) is well aware that he can’t be too much in awe of Miller’s 45, soon to be 46 UFC fights.

“It’s one of those things, it kind of sucks about this sport, is you can’t have too much reverence for people and their careers, especially if they’re in the same weight class. You just don’t know who you’re going to fight and when,” observed Hooper, speaking with media outlets ahead of what will be his 11th UFC fight. “I obviously have a lot of respect for Jim, and I have a lot of respect for Clay [Guida] and all these veterans that I’ve fought. But at the end of the day it’s them or me. I hopefully will get another younger prospect on the up-and-come after this, another guy on a win streak. For now, we’ll take who we can get.”

Hooper came into the UFC young, very young, and he’s still just 25. After an appearance on the Contender Series in 2018, rather than being signed outright, he was inked the a developmental deal. Hooper, who was 6-0 after his DWCS fight, competed three times on the regional circuit under that deal before being called up to the UFC proper. It’s an option the UFC has used sparingly, in just a handful of cases.

“I think in certain cases it made a ton of sense,” stated Hooper on the developmental deal front, noting examples like Mackenzie Dern and Greg Hardy. “It’s an investment, and I see why they don’t do it as much.” Still, Hooper believes that there are certain fighters, like Dern or “definitely people on the younger end like I was,” who could benefit. Specifically fighters who are great in one area but need to round out their skillset.

“It’s a way to keep building somebody close by, like in the Fight Pass realm, without throwing them right into the deep end of the UFC,” Hooper said. “I would like to see more of those honestly.”

Watch Chase Hooper’s full UFC 314 media day appearance above.

The post A Beneficiary of a Developmental Deal, UFC 314’s Chase Hooper Wants to See More of Them appeared first on Cageside Press.

Miller (38-18, 1NC) will face Chase Hooper (15-3-1) at the Pay-Per-View event, strongly rumored to take place in at the Kaseya Center in Miami, Florida on April 12, 2025.

News of Miller vs. Hooper was first reported by Twitter/X’s Super Fan (@McGregorRousey2), who posted snippets of a DM exchange with Hooper confirming the bout. Miller later confirmed the booking on his Instagram Story.

Chase Hooper is riding high of late, having won four straight fights, most recently submitting Clay Guida, an old foe of Miller’s and another veteran of the lightweight division (as it turns out, Hooper will be the final UFC opponent for Guida, who is now gone from the company). At 25, “The Dream” is 16 years younger than Jim Miller, who will once again have the experience advantage in the fight.

“A-10” Miller is 6-2 across his last eight bouts and is coming off a submission finish of Damon Jackson at UFC 309. That extended his record for most UFC wins, bouts, and lightweight bouts.

Having made his UFC debut in 2008, Jim Miller has seemingly never looked back, with his current goal 50 fights with the promotion. The Hooper fight will be his 46th.

UFC 314 is rumored to be headlined by a featherweight title fight between champ Ilia Topuria, and the man he defeated for gold, Alexander Volkanovski. Not officially announced, news of that booking was leaked by UFC middleweight Bo Nickal. The following fights have been reported for the card to date:

• Gilbert Burns vs. Michael Morales
• Yan Xiaonan vs. Virna Jandiroba
• Dominick Reyes vs. Nikita Krylov
• Jim Miller vs. Chase Hooper

The post Jim Miller vs. Chase Hooper Booked for UFC 314 appeared first on Cageside Press.

This time, it was an arm-bar in the opening round, one that earned Hooper a Performance of the Night bonus. The fight also marked his return to the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, where he made his UFC debut.

Having seen Guida fight for years, Hooper (15-3-1) did what he could to not be star-struck in the octagon, or caught watching his opponent. “I felt like I didn’t really want to go in there giving him the respect of being a Hall of Famer, the respect of being a 36-fight UFC veteran. Just treat it like any other fight.”

Hooper hails from Enumclaw, Washington and the UFC recently announced the UFC Seattle card for 2025. That’s a card Hooper wants to be part of. As to who he might face, “I don’t know,” Hooper told Cageside Press on Saturday. “Just an intriguing match-up. The thing about this sport is that you want people to care about your fights. So I want to fight people that people want to watch fight. Everybody was in there cheering for Clay Guida, because they love Clay Guida. So being a part of that fight makes people want to watch it. I want match-ups like that.”

“I feel like that’s the biggest thing in this sport— it’s still entertainment. So I want an exciting match-up, I want somebody that will engage in the grappling, I want somebody that will engage in the standup. So yeah, we’ll see.”

Watch the full UFC 310 post-fight press conference with Chase Hooper above.

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Those big finishes led to four Performance of the Night bonuses being awarded, in lieu of a Fight of the Night. Among the winning fighters cashing in, flyweight champ Alexandre Pantoja, who proved that an immediate title shot for RIZIN star Kai Asakura was too big of an ask.

A rare situation in the modern era (Gilbert Melendez and Joe Soto received immediate shots at gold in 2013 and 2014, respectively, though the latter was an injury replacement), Asakura was the latest fighter to try and fail for a UFC championship in his promotional debut. After a big jump knee attempt in the opening seconds of the UFC 310 main event, Asakura failed to make much of an impact, with reigning champ Pantoja out-striking him in the opening round. In the second, “The Cannibal” took the fight to the mat, got a body lock in place, and choked the Japanese challenger unconscious.

That was enough to earn Pantoja an extra $50,000 by way of a Performance of the Night bonus. It was also the second technical submission to cash out, with Vicente Luque choking out Themba Gorimbo earlier in the night for another Performance bonus.

The remaining two Performance of the Night bonuses at UFC 310 went to Kennedy Nzechukwu, who put away Lukasz Brzeski for his second victory at heavyweight, and Chase Hooper. Hooper was another fighter whose submission skills shined bright in the desert on Saturday, as he put away veteran Clay Guida with an arm-bar.

The post Submissions Shine! Pantoja, Luque Among Bonus Winners at UFC 310 appeared first on Cageside Press.

Age apart— Guida is 42, Hooper 25 — the pair could not have been in more different spots. “The Carpenter” had lost two straight, while Hooper was on a roll, having picked up victories in his last three, including two straight submissions.

In a fight where most expected it to be contested mainly on the ground Hooper decided to show just how much he’s improved on the feet. Cleaner footwork, good combinations, he put it on Guida early and often.

Grappling fans weren’t disappointed however as the two did grapple plenty with the taller Hooper getting the better of Guida in each exchange.

The pace was high, but not enough to slow Hooper down as he used the striking game to make Guida worry about the hands, and when the fight hit the ground the young kid took over.

Quick work for Chase Hooper 💪#UFC310 | LIVE NOW | ESPN+ 🍿 https://t.co/XX1YuUOYuv pic.twitter.com/jZGDWqQl0J

— ESPN MMA (@espnmma) December 7, 2024

Hooper sunk the arm bar in forcing Guida into a panic as he looked for a way out of the submission, but it was not to be. Hooper scores a second consecutive victory ending his 2024 with a 2-1 record.

Official Result: Chase Hooper def. Clay Guida via R1 SUB (Armbar), 3:41

The post Chase Hooper Shows Off Striking Game, Scores Armbar Victory appeared first on Cageside Press.