Hooker on KO loss to Chandler: ‘I’ve just wasted four months of my life for that’
Dan Hooker reflects on his first-round KO loss to Michael Chandler at UFC 257.
Dan Hooker suffered a huge setback at UFC 257 after losing via first-round knockout to former Bellator lightweight champion Michael Chandler.
‘The Hangman’ was always prepared for the worst case scenario but feels like he wasted four months of his life training for what was undoubtedly the biggest fight — and potential flop — of his career.
“To be honest, I had nothing to say,” Hooker told Submission Radio in a recent interview. “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. (Laughs). 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.”
Hooker wanted to hang up the gloves after he got back to the fighter’s hotel but soon changed his mind after the initial post-fight frustration wore off. After having had time to reflect, Hooker realized that he is no more upset than he was after he dropped a unanimous decision loss to Dustin Poirier at UFC Vegas 4.
“You’re always frustrated after a loss,” Hooker explained. “(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 (laughs), “I’ve kind of painted myself into a bit of a corner here.’ (Laughs).
“People think you’re gonna be rolling around in depression and not getting out of bed, but I know what it is. This is a sport I’ve been doing and following for my entire adult life. It’s always a possibility. A loss like this, you’re not rolling around in depression, super upset. It’s self-explanatory. It is what it is. I can honestly say I’m not any more upset than when I lost the Poirier fight.”
Some fans have used the loss to criticize Hooker’s chin, but the New Zealander knows his durability isn’t up for question.
“Trust me, no one has a good chin,” he said. “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.”
Hooker has now lost two in a row and dropped two places to #8 in the UFC lightweight rankings.