Dan Hooker discusses Israel Adesanya’s “scary” strength training for UFC 305: “He’s got new strength and power”
Dan Hooker discussed Israel Adesanya's physical transformation ahead of his UFC 305 title fight. 'The Last Stylebender' took an extended break from competition after losing the UFC middleweight title against Sean Strickland in September 2023. He appears to have gained significant size and strength heading into the title fight against newly crowned champion Dricus du Plessis.
Adesanya's training partner and lightweight contender Dan Hooker will also return to competition against Mateusz Gamrot on the UF 305 undercard. In a recent interview with Sporting News Australia, Hooker said about Adesanya's transformation:
"He went away, fixed all those injuries that he was carrying around. And he's been pumping the weights with Coach. He came back and he's just looking scary, mate! I don't even want to spar the bloke anymore. He's hitting harder than he's ever been hitting. He's got some kind of new strength and power. He's looking scary right now."
Check out Dan Hooker's comments below (4:53):
Dan Hooker explains why Israel Adesanya could not build strength and size earlier in his career
Israel Adesanya was one of the most actively competing champions during his middleweight title reign. Many speculated that the constant activity would probably hamper Adesanya's ability to stay ahead of the division and the loss against Strickland proved the argument right.
Speaking in the aforementioned interview, Hooker explained why Adesanya could not make changes to his training earlier in his career:
"I just think he didn't usually have the time to do it. He was fighting, as a champion, five times a year! You just don't obviously have the time to put into lifting weights, building strength and working on those kinds of things. Just him having that time to go away and pack on a bit more weight and add more size to the frame has obviously positively impacted his performance." [5:30]
Speaking further, Dan Hooker did not rule out his teammate's move up to light heavyweight, where he could potentially fight his archnemesis, Alex Pereira:
"His weight isn't under the light heavyweight limit at the moment. He's still heavy. Weight cutting gets a bit harder as you get older. But the world is Israel Adesanya's oyster if he gets the win against Dricus. We'll see what he's got planned." [6:41]
UFC 305 will take place on Aug. 17 in Perth, Australia. A potential win over Dricus du Plessis will make Adesanya the first three-time UFC middleweight champion in history. Apart from Hooker and Adesanya, their teammate Kai Kara-France will also return to compete against former title challenger Steve Erceg in the co-main event.