Dan Hooker has a behavior of dealing with fighters on the apex of their careers. Aside from Dustin Poirier, who was recent off his title struggle loss to Khabib Nurmagomedov, each opponent Hooker has confronted within the final three years has been coming off a minimum of two wins. The truth is, every of the ‘Hangman’’s final three opponents—Claudio Puelles, Arnold Allen, and Islam Makhachev—have been working years lengthy profitable streaks once they confronted off towards the Metropolis Kickboxing expertise.
That makes information of Hooker’s newest struggle reserving one thing like enterprise as common. In an interview with The Mac Life, the 32-year-old introduced his subsequent bout, towards #10 ranked light-weight Jalin Turner on March 4th.
“I’m preventing Jalin Tuner. High 10, child,” Hooker introduced. “Clearly, had a pair beers with him a few month in the past. Twitter rampage proceeded to comply with, because it does. Simply fishing with dynamite, actually. I feel I stated that he turned the struggle down. And he stated, ‘Hey man, I didn’t flip that struggle down.’ And I used to be like, ‘Nicely, let’s have a struggle then.’ And it labored.”
Very similar to Hooker’s different current opponents, ‘The Tarantula’ is at the moment driving a 5-fight win streak, most not too long ago coming off a primary spherical shellacking of Hooker teammate Brad Riddell at UFC 276 final July. That win introduced Turner’s MMA report to 13-5 total, together with his final loss coming towards Matt Frevola again in 2019.
For Hooker, his knack for taking powerful fights hasn’t essentially all the time served him properly. Whereas recent off a victory over Claudio Puelles again in November, Hooker had beforehand misplaced back-to-back fights towards the aforementioned Allen and Makhachev. He’s 12-8 over his 8-year UFC run, with an total MMA report of 22-12.
Hooker vs. Turner is at the moment deliberate for the undercard of UFC 285. The PPV occasion is about to be headlined by a heavyweight title struggle between former mild heavyweight champ Jon Jones and former interim heavyweight champ Ciryl Gane.
Concerning the writer: Zane Simon is a senior editor, author and podcaster for Bloody Elbow. Host of the MMA Vivisection and sixth Spherical, he has coated MMA and the UFC since 2013. (full bio)
