"I'm finished with this sh*tty sport!" - Dan Hooker reveals that he almost retired after UFC 257 loss
UFC lightweight Dan Hooker has revealed that he almost decided to quit MMA in the immediate aftermath of his knockout loss to Michael Chandler at UFC 257.
During the official announcement of his fight against Chandler, Hooker was seen taking his gloves off inside the octagon. That caused the commentators to wonder whether the Kiwi fighter had decided to hang up his gloves and bid adieu to MMA.
However, that wasn't the case. In a recent interview with Submission Radio, Dan Hooker revealed that he was so frustrated following the loss against Chandler that he almost decided to retire immediately. But once he got back to the hotel, Hooker said he thought better of it.
“You’re always frustrated after a loss. (It was) a balance of everything. Sheer frustration, you’re disappointed, and in that moment I was like, ‘I’m done! 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. I’ve kind of painted myself into a bit of a corner here.’ ".
Dan Hooker says KO loss stung much worse than he was prepared for
Reflecting on his first-round loss to Chandler at the blockbuster UFC 257 pay-per-view, Dan Hooker claimed that he went into the fight prepared for the worst-case scenario. However, to his surprise, the loss and the manner of it was indeed worse than Hooker had ever imagined. He regrets the fact that he spent four months training for a fight where he didn't even last the entirety of the opening round.
"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. 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.”
Dan Hooker is now on a two-fight losing skid inside the octagon. Before the fight against Chandler, Hooker dropped a narrow decision loss to Dustin Poirier in a five round thriller back in June last year at UFC on ESPN: Poirier vs. Hooker. Dan Hooker will be desperately looking to bounce back with a big win in his next fight to stay in the title picture at 155lbs.