Longtime lightweight contender Dan Hooker, responsible for some of the most action-packed wars in the 155-pound division over the last few years, was popped and dropped by Michael Chandler at the UFC 257 pay-per-view (PPV) event in Abu Dhabi.
Four months of preparation for two-and-a-half minutes of work.
The knockout loss cost “The Hangman” two spots in the lightweight rankings, his victory bonus, and the opportunity to get back into the win column after previously coming up short against Dustin Poirier at UFC on ESPN 12 last June.
Just don’t expect him to hit rock bottom (like this guy).
“You’re always frustrated after a loss,” Hooker told Submission Radio. “Yeah, like, a balance of everything. Like, of sheer frustration, you’re disappointed. And then you get back to the hotel. In that moment, I was like, ‘I’m done. I’m finished with this shitty sport. I’m done.’ And then you get back to the hotel and you sit down and think about it, and you realize you’re not good at anything else either. I was kind of thinking, shit, I’ve kind of painted myself into a bit of a corner here.”
Hooker, who turns 31 in just a few days, made his Octagon debut with a technical knockout win over Ian Entwistle at the UFC Fight Night 43 event back in June 2014. His record during that span stands at 10-6 with victories over the likes of Gilbert Burns and Paul Felder, just to name a few.
But the Kiwi has now suffered back-to-back losses.
“You invest so much into this sport. You invest so much. Like, you prepare for a bad case, but that’s like a whole other level,” Hooker continued. “You have good days, bad days. And like, you prepare, you go into these kinds of things and you prepare yourself for the worst-case scenario, but even that took the cake. Even that surprised me how bad it went. That was the very surprising thing. So, what can you say? What can you say? I have no words to describe that. You come to, and then you’re just like, wow, I’ve just wasted four months, four months of my life for that.”
It won’t be a waste if the promotion pairs him off against someone in the Top 5 coming off a loss, like Conor McGregor, Justin Gaethje, or Tony Ferguson, because a victory over any one of those contenders puts “The Hangman” right back into title contention.