Dan Hooker is a man of many retirements.
Nine, to be exact. The latest one came after he received a brutal TKO defeat at the hands of Michael Chandler back in January. But his ability to put those setbacks aside, and his complete dedication to his craft, means he won’t ever lose sight of the ultimate goal: The UFC’s lightweight title.
That may seem a Kiwi country mile away right now, the image of Hooker wearing a left hook from Chandler and the American back-flipping off the Octagon fence is hard to disassociate from Hooker. But with a fight at last lined up, Hooker plans to make the necessary adjustments to stay in touch with the elite company of the UFC’s lightweight division.
“Don’t get me wrong, I’m a terrible loser. Don’t think for a second that I’m not a sore loser. I am ultra-competitive and I am the sorest loser,” Hooker told ESPN after his September 26 fight with Afghan Nasrat Haqparast was confirmed.
“That’s why I retired after that last fight; I’ve lost 10 fights and I’ve retired nine times, the only time I didn’t retire was when I had a fight the week after. I said I’d retire after that fight but then I won that one and I was back in business. That’s something I do regularly and it never gets any easier, it gets continually harder.
“But that’s the thing about it, the longer you sit on it and lick your wounds — I’m talking about your emotional wounds — it’s really just going to hamper your future progress and that’s something that I have been quite good at, being able to pick myself up.”
Hooker was floored by Chandler’s left hand just two minutes and 20 seconds in the first round of their UFC 257 showdown, after the New Zealander had struggled to assert himself against the energetic American who was fighting in the UFC for the first time.
Given Chandler earned a title shot with the victory, Hooker has no regrets about taking the fight in a scenario that was always going to have its challenges.
“No, 100 percent no. Obviously you want to change the result of the fight; if you had fought well and had lost that is something that you would want to change,” Hooker said.
“But 100% no, I don’t regret for a second taking that kind of opportunity, it’s a risk-reward. Had I won, I would have been the one fighting for the title at the end of the day.
“That’s the goal, that’s what we’re all chasing in the sport, I would do it again in a heartbeat. So there is definitely no regret there.”
Hooker also says there is plenty to learn from every fight, no matter how long they last.
Having engaged in back-to-back five round “wars” with Paul Felder and Dustin Poirier, the New Zealander admits he probably got caught out thinking the fight with Chandler would follow a similar script.
“It’s a game of adjustments, I would say, fighting. You learn lessons from your previous fight and you make adjustments,” he explained. “The two fights before that were 25-minute back-and-forth wars, I would say I was preparing for a fight like that. I was preparing for the fight to build into a fight like that.
“But I tip my hat to Michael Chandler, I saw him after the fight and I wished him luck in the future like every competitor I come across. And we’ll move onto the next one, the longer you sit on your losses then the longer it takes to get over it. In reality you’re just slowing yourself down and hampering your own progress and future accomplishments.”
After missing the fun and games of the City Kickboxing lock-in last year, Hooker has moved into the Auckland gym this time around after New Zealand was thrust back into a lockdown due to a recent outbreak of COVID-19.
While he is enjoying the “cack” [slang for fun and games] of eating, sleeping and training among his fellow CKB teammates, it is also affording him the best chance of a bounce-back win against Haqparast.
“I think everyone knows I’ve been calling for a fight since June, I tried to get on Israel’s [Adesanya] card against a ranked opponent. So from June to September, someone’s had the opportunity to step up and have a crack at a top 10 [fighter] and no one’s taken me up on the offer,” he said.
“So that’s the reason I’m fighting Nasrat, it’s because he’s the only guy that’s stepped up to take the fight. No other ranked fighter stepped up to take this fight, whether they were a ranked fighter or whether they were ranked lower, they were either booked for another fight, injured or washing their hair.
“That’s what the UFC matchmakers have told me, so Nasrat is in there because he is the only guy that’s stepped up. That’s why we’re in this position.”
Hooker doesn’t pay too much attention to the rankings either.
“When it comes to skills, he’s at the same level as a guy in the top 15. I feel like using the rankings as an excuse to turn down the opportunity for a fight, it’s a pretty egotistical thing,” Hooker told ESPN.
“I understand the rankings, they’re fun to talk about, it’s something to argue with your mates about. But using the rankings as an excuse to not have a good fight; this stylistically is a good fight, he is a good fighter and he deserves to be in there with me.
“Turning the fight down, I feel personally it would have demonstrated some form of cowardice or a lack of confidence in my ability, but I am confident in my ability and I back myself to get out there and get the job done and that’s why I was willing to take this fight.”