Dan the ‘Hangman’ Hooker hasn’t been the same since his ‘very close’ unanimous decision loss following a 5-round war against Dustin Poirier. Dan has gone on to lose three fights and win only one since then. In his recent outing, Dan got TKO’d in the first round by Arnold Allen in a featherweight debut. Following this loss ‘the Hangman’ was seen devastated while exiting the octagon leaving fans to speculate on the future of the Kiwi native. After back-to-back losses at lightweight, Dan came back to featherweight in hopes of a shot at the 145 title.
Friends of the former lightweight contender were also supportive of the beloved fighter.
UFC Lightweight Champion Charles ‘Do Bronx’ Oliveira wants to see Dan back at the top and hopes he will bounce back from the setbacks he’s been suffering from.
‘Do Bronx’ tweeted.
“I wish him the best, and I hope he can rebound from these setbacks. God bless you and your family, @danthehangman”
I wish him the best, and I hope he can rebound from these setbacks.
God bless you and your family, @danthehangman
— Charles 'DoBronxs' Oliveira (@CharlesDoBronxs) March 20, 2022
His City Kickboxing teammate, UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya, also showed great distress.
In a video posted on Adesanya’s YouTube channel, Adesanya was visibly angry at the referee for stopping the fight ‘early’.
“Come on ref, what the f***!” Adesanye exclaimed.
“It’s hard for me to say, but I feel like I’ve seen later stoppages. And I know Dan. But still. I wasn’t in there, whatever. But like, just, f***. It s**ks. It s**ks, and I feel for Dan because I know how much he puts into this. But as we do this, we’ll be back. Ain’t no sh**. We’ll be back. We’ll be back.” He further added.
UFC President Dana White also had nothing but praise for the Kiwi. Dana liked the fact that Dan made weight and was happy with Dan’s tactics in the fight.
White’s good will toward Hooker likely stems from the fact Hooker was willing to accept a Islam Makhachev bout on short notice and help out the promotion in a big way.
While speaking at the Post-fight conference of UFC London Dana said:
“He came in and performed tonight. He made weight, he came in and went to war with a guy that’s undefeated in this weight class. And he can do whatever he wants to.”
What the future has in store for the ‘Hangman’ only time will tell.
Video of Hooker walking out with a towel over his head, devastated is one sight we won’t be forgetting any time soon.
<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>Seeing Hooker like this is tough <a href=”https://t.co/PJFhk5Odey”>pic.twitter.com/PJFhk5Odey</a></p>— calfkicker (@calfkickercom) <a href=”https://twitter.com/calfkickercom/status/1505947280955817986?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>March 21, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″></script>