Dan Hooker has opened up on his ‘bad dream’ TKO loss to Michael Chandler.
In the co-main event of UFC 257, Hooker welcomed Chandler to the UFC in a very intriguing bout. Entering the fight, Hooker was the betting favorite but it was Chandler who got the job done by first-round TKO.
Now, following the loss, Dan Hooker had his first interview where he opened up on the disappointing result.
“What can you say? What can you say? You have good days, bad days. And like, you prepare, you go into these kinds of things and you prepare yourself for the worst-case scenario, but even that took the cake,” Hooker said to Submission Radio (via LowKick MMA). “Even that surprised me how bad it went. That was the very surprising thing. So, what can you say? What can you say? I have no words to describe that. You come to, and then you’re just like, wow, I’ve just wasted four months, four months of my life for that.”
“You invest so much into this sport,” Hooker added. “You invest so much. Like, you prepare for a bad case, but that’s like a whole other level. That’s the first time that that’s ever happened to me in my career, to not only lose, but to lose in that kind of fashion. But you’re out back and you’re fine. Like, you go back to the hotel, I was completely fine. You don’t even feel like you’ve been in a fight.
“At least if you go out there, you fight your heart out, you get busted up, someone gets the better of you, but you know you tried. You went out on your shield, you tried, you fought hard. That’s a lot easier to take, because you went out there. I didn’t even feel like I got in a fight,” Hooker concluded. “We arrived back in the hotel, I was like, was that? You’re more thinking, is that a bad dream? You’re just in like more of a bad dream case scenario.”
When Dan Hooker will fight again is uncertain at this time. But, he confirmed he is not retiring despite leaving his gloves inside the Octagon.
