Dan Hooker withdraws for upcoming bout with injury

By Christopher Reive

Dan Hooker will have to wait until the new year to return to the octagon after an arm injury has forced him to withdraw from his upcoming bout at UFC Austin.

Hooker was set to square off against Bobby Green in a rare five-round co-main event on the December 3 card, looking to back up his hard-fought win over Jalin Turner in July.

Following the win over Turner, Hooker had to have surgery to repair a broken arm; he reinjured the same arm during a sparring session at Auckland’s City Kickboxing gym on Monday night.

“It’s just one of those things. I’ve been kicked a thousand times in the last two months and he just got me on the right spot. It’s broken on the same spot as I broke it last time,” Hooker told the Herald.

“I just didn’t give it enough time to set. It probably didn’t need too much, just another month of lifting weights so it could set, but I just jumped straight into training camp which takes a toll on your body. It slowed down the recovery of the arm, and Bob’s your uncle. It just hadn’t set.”

It’s a frustrating blow for the 33-year-old, who was eager to get back to work and build on his two-fight winning steak in a bout against another high-action fighter. Hooker, ranked No 9 in the lightweight division, was putting his spot in the rankings on the line against No 12-ranked Green.

Hooker was quick to admit he had rushed his return from injury, noting that it was a fight he called for and he agreed to the date despite the tight timeframe in relation to his recovery.

The UFC is looking to find a replacement for Hooker to keep Green on the card, which will be headlined by fellow ranked lightweights Beneil Dariush (4) and Arman Tsarukyan (8).

Hooker is now expecting to face another 4-6 month recovery period with surgery ahead, and was waiting to get the break assess to deem whether it was a new break or a re-break of his old injury.

While it was disappointing for Hooker to have to withdraw from the bout, injuries come with the territory of the sport and he had no intention of apologising to Green for the fight falling apart.

“I don’t really believe in apologising to your opponent,” Hooker said. “You were going to have a fight with the bloke; I wasn’t going to go in there and kiss him on the cheek.

“I was planning to do some terrible things. Now you’re going to say sorry, ‘sorry I don’t get to try and take your head off’?”

This article was first published on nzherald.co.nz and is republished here with permission