Dan Hooker still seems interested in a fight against Brian Ortega
Dan Hooker has once again hinted at a fight with Brian Ortega in a move back down to featherweight. The 31-year-old teased a matchup with 'T-City' on his Instagram story, posting a fan-made poster of their potential fight.
'The Hangman' scored big wins at lightweight against the likes of Gilbert Burns, Al Iaquinta and Paul Felder. However, he ended up losing three of his next four against Dustin Poirier, Michael Chandler and most recently Islam Makhachev.
Looks like Dan Hooker is headed to Featherweight. Should he fight the top of the division right away or build himself up? #LetsGo 👏🏾#DanHooker #ufc twitter.com/danthehangman/…
Hooker recently went through a test weight cut, making 146 pounds on the scale. This gave him the reassurance that he could comfortably cut down to featherweight if he chose to do so.
Interestingly, Hooker ran into UFC matchmaker Sean Shelby while cornering Kai Kara-France at UFC 269 and asked Shelby for a showdown with Brian Ortega.
Brian Ortega is coming off a unanimous decision loss at the hands of Dan Hooker's teammate, UFC featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski at UFC 266.
Brian Ortega's only two losses have come off of title fights against Volkanovski and Max Holloway in 2018.
On the other hand, 'The Hangman' had an inconsistent featherweight campaign, scoring wins against Hatsu Hioki and Mark Eddiva, while losing to Yair Rodriguez back in 2015.
What's next for Brian Ortega if not Dan Hooker?
Another possible move for 'T-City' would be a marquee matchup against fellow latin star Yair 'El Pantera' Rodriguez.
Both men are coming off losses to the top two ranked fighters in the division. Ortega lost against champion Alexander Volkanovski while Yair was defeated by the number one-ranked contender, former UFC featherweight champion Max 'Blessed' Holloway.
Perhaps another interesting move would be a jump to the lightweight division where there will be fresh match-ups to chase after.
Brian Ortega hasn't shied away from discussing a move up to lightweight. In fact, he reportedly agreed to fight Khabib Nurmagomedov for his UFC lightweight title at UFC 233.
Brian Ortega says he agreed to face Khabib Nurmagomedov at UFC 233, but Max Holloway got the fight instead mmafighting.com/2018/4/2/17189… https://t.co/7rlQB8CCCt
Charles Oliveira is currently the king of the division with Justin Gaethje, Islam Makhachev, Conor McGregor and Beneil Dariush all entrenched in the title picture. Adding Ortega to the mix is bound to make the division even more exciting than it already is.