Dan Hooker is ready to remind everyone that he’s still a top UFC contender.
Hooker (22-12 MMA, 12-8 UFC) faces Jalin Turner (13-6 MMA, 6-3 UFC) at UFC 290 on July 8 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
“The Hangman” was on the cusp of title contention having won seven of eight fights when he was matched up with former interim champ Dustin Poirier in June 2020. He was outlasted in a Fight of the Night battle against Poirier and has failed to regain top form ever since.
“It’s rematches time,” Hooker told Submission Radio. “It’s rematches time. Like, it’ll be good to – yeah. I feel like even this fight will answer some questions obviously about how, yeah, like, it answers a lot of the questions. People will be like, ‘Oh, he is not sh*t.’ Like, ‘Oh, whoa, he was just not training for those fights.’ He is a good position to be in, when you’re out there proving people wrong and you’ve got a bit of a chip on your shoulder. That’s always where I kind of do my best work and kind of shine.”
Hooker’s recent losses came to top-level competition such as current lightweight champion Islam Makhachev – a fight he took on short notice. He took out heel hook specialist Claudio Puelles in his most recent outing at UFC 281 and sees a win over Turner proving that he’s still a threat at lightweight.
Turner saw his five-fight winning streak snapped by Mateusz Gamrot in a split decision loss at UFC 285, but Hooker thought he won the fight.
“All the hype around him is very legitimate, right? Like, it’s very deserving,” Hooker said. “I think he’s one of the toughest guys in the division. Especially the style that he kind of brings. I feel like he was very impressive in the fight against Gamrot. I thought that he won that fight. I thought like, if you’re truly looking at the fight and the way that he fights, like, he was trying to fight Gamrot. Gamrot kind of figured out like a cheat code where he kind of fights without actually fighting. It’s quite interesting.”
For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 290.
