Dan Hooker headed for two surgeries, reveals when he broke arm during Jalin Turner fight

Dan Hooker fought through a broken arm for the better part of two full rounds to get the job done against Jalin Turner at UFC 290, but it took a replay to figure out exactly when his injury occurred.

Hooker said Monday on The MMA Hour that he went back and watched the fight afterward, and that’s when he witnessed a kick delivered by Turner in the opening round that likely fractured a bone in his wrist. A few minutes later, the 33-year-old New Zealand native definitely knew something had gone horribly wrong, although he never contemplated finding a way out of the fight.

“I went back and I watched and I think it was a bit of a slow process,” Hooker said on The MMA Hour. “I think it was a front kick in the first round that I think might have put a little crack in it. If you look at it, just as round two starts, I look down at my arm because it’s not responding the way I want it to, and then in the second [round], he lands a couple more kicks and I think that breaks it.

“I definitely felt it in the second. I was like, ‘Something’s up here.’ I couldn’t feel my right hand, and then it wasn’t until the third round, I dropped him and I tried to finish him, I was following up with punches, and it was one punch and I was like, ‘I’m going to throw my right hand anyways.’ I threw my right and I felt it completely go out of place. My whole right arm just went dead. It’s not how I wanted to win. I was just controlling him on top with my right elbow and just staying on top punching him with my left hand.”

One of the most significant strikes in the fight came when Turner launched a head kick in the early part of the second round that ricocheted off Hooker’s face.

Despite the shot landing clean, Hooker survived the subsequent onslaught and actually turned the tables by hurting Turner just moments later, which led to a near submission finish just as the round came to a close. That final sequence, coupled with his performance in the third round, convinced Hooker that he did enough to secure the victory, regardless of the fact that he just went nearly 10 minutes competing with only one fully capable arm.

“Second round, he booted me in the head — I would have liked to get my hand there but it just didn’t do what it was told,” Hooker said. “I hurt him at the end of that round and finished with the rear-naked choke wrapped up. So that’s a fight-ending sequence in round two.

“Round three, I was hurting him on the feet and then controlling him on the ground. It’s pretty hard to argue against that. I was pretty confident. I was confident that I got the job done.”

Even with the broken arm, Hooker came the closest to finishing the fight with his second-round submission attempt, however it didn’t discourage him that he couldn’t put Turner away.

“That was a wrap pretty much,” Hooker said. “That was in deep, but it’s not something you can be mentally like, ‘That was my chance!’ I wasn’t feeling at all [like] that was my one opportunity. We’ve got another five minutes so we’re going to get him out here.”

Hooker is now on a two-fight win streak after his performance at UFC 290, but he’s not ready to start looking ahead at what’s next just yet.

The broken arm will require Hooker to undergo surgery on Wednesday, and he will likely have another surgery to repair some damage done to his face as well, but Hooker has no doubts that he’ll bounce back quickly like he always does.

“[The broken arm is] pretty sore. But what are you going to do about it?” Hooker said. “We’ll get it all fixed up and back to 100 percent in no time.”