Dan Hooker recently donned his soothsaying hat and claimed that he doesn’t see the result of his next fight against Jalin Turner being decided by the judges. ‘The Hangman’ is set to go up against ‘The Tarantula’ in a lightweight contest at UFC 290 this weekend.
Considering their explosive fighting styles and propensity to aim for knockouts, Dan Hooker recently claimed that he believes the fight will end with a finish. In a recent interview with ‘The Schmo,’ Hooker was asked for his thoughts on Jalin Turner and his upcoming fight, to which he replied:
“Yeah, he’s a good fighter. Very dangerous. Lot of knockouts on his record, and a lot of knockouts on my record. I can’t see the judges getting involved in this one over the fifteen minutes. I’m ready for both, we go out there and get in a gunslinging match, or it’s a technical fight for the full fifteen minutes. I’m prepared for both.”
While Hooker was initially booked to fight Turner at UFC 285 in March, the New Zealander suffered an unfortunate hand injury and was forced to withdraw from the bout. The 33-year-old is coming off an impressive TKO win over Claudio Puelles at UFC 281, whereas Turner will be looking to redeem a loss against Mateusz Gamrot at UFC 285.
Dan Hooker on Dustin Poirier vs. Justin Gaethje for the ‘BMF’ title
Dan Hooker recently weighed in on the highly anticipated Dustin Poirier vs. Justin Gaethje fight for the ‘BMF’ (Baddest Motherf**ker) title at UFC 291, and it’s safe to say that ‘The Hangman’ is not a fan of this matchup having the symbolic title on the line.
The BMF title was originally meant to be a unique one-off belt awarded to the winner of Jorge Masvidal vs. Nate Diaz at UFC 244. After Masvidal won the belt, he held on to it for the remainder of his career and vacated the title after announcing his retirement at UFC 287 in April.
With the BMF title now vacant, the promotion decided to find it a new home and matched up two of the lightweight division’s hardest-hitting strikers. However, Dan Hooker believes that while a fight between Dustin Poirier and Justin Gaethje is undoubtedly exciting, the bout being called a BMF title fight dampens its significance.
In a recent video uploaded to Israel Adesanya’s YouTube channel, the 33-year-old Kiwi weighed in on the headliner of UFC 291 and said:
“It’s a little bit of a silly fight, you know what I mean? We’re prizefighters at the end of the day… What does it actually mean though?… Of course, I’d take it because there’s money that comes with it, which is the main objective of doing it. But having a BMF title and hanging that on my wall and being proud of that is not the same as a world title.”