“In that moment I was like, ‘I’m done! I’m finished with this sh*tty sport! I’m done!” Dan Hooker reflects on his loss against Michael Chandler
Follow Us
The UFC Lightweight fighter Dan Hooker’s UFC 257 didn’t go as he planned. Hooker stepped into this fight with a unanimous decision loss against Dustin Poirier and he planned to spoil the debut of Bellator sensation Michael Chandler.
But Chandler produced a major upset in this fight and announced his arrival in UFC by ruthlessly knocking out Dan Hooker in the very first round. After his loss in this first interview with Submission Radio, Hooker says,
“To be honest, I had nothing to say, Like a week went past and what can you say? What can you say? You have good days and bad days. You go into these kind of things and you prepare yourself for worst case scenarios, but even that took the cake.”
“Even then it surprised me how bad it went. That was the very surprising thing. So I was like, what can you say? I had no words to describe it. You come to and then you’re just like, I’ve just wasted four months of my life for that.”
“That’s like the funny thing, zigged and should’ve zagged, That’s all it is. Fighting is like a mixture of thinking and your reactions. You’re balancing your process thought and then your reactions.”
“I felt like I was calm, could see everything, was thinking, was sharp in there. I just relied on my reactions to get out of the way of that punch and it let me down. It’s hard to describe. It’s such an obvious error and such a very costly mistake.”
“He changed levels. I think I relied on my reaction time. He sold the level change well. I thought he was going for a takedown, comes upstairs with a punch. There’s a million things I could’ve done that would’ve changed that.”
“There’s a million different reactions that I could’ve done and that not happen. ut it did. What can you do? I certainly don’t have a time machine. I think Floyd Mayweather has a time machine. If anyone has a time machine, Floyd Mayweather has a time machine. I do not have a time machine.”
Dan Hooker is very frustrated with his loss
The former Bellator Lightweight champion Michael Chandler was given a warning by Dan Hooker before the fight that he’ll break the new toy real soon. But after that fight only thing he has left with is frustration.
Hooker added, “You’re always frustrated after a loss, It was a balance of everything. Sheer frustration, you’re disappointed, and in that moment I was like, ‘I’m done! Laughs I’m finished with this sh*tty sport! I’m done!’”
“Then you get back to the hotel and you think about it and you realize you’re not good at anything else either, so it’s like well, “I’ve kind of painted myself into a bit of a corner here.’”
“Trust me, no one has a good chin, You get hit with those gloves on – I wouldn’t stick my chin in the air and let my wife punch me in the chin. She’d probably knock me out.”
“Does that mean she’s a knockout puncher? It’s just that people get hit in the chin and people don’t get hit in the chin. No one has a good chin. That’s a myth.”
Also Read: “No I am not fighting,” Joanna Jedrzejczyk reveals she isn’t fighting in April against Yan Xiaonan
Stay Updated!
Shivansh Thakur
(1173 Articles Published)