After the smoke cleared at UFC 257, Dan Hooker still believes his knockout loss to Michael Chandler was a borderline fluke.
Dan Hooker last competed on the blockbuster pay-per-view headlined by Conor McGregor and Dustin Poirier 3. In the co-main event, the New Zealand native had the pleasure of welcoming Chandler to the UFC.
However, the fight did not go as planned after Chandler shuffled across the Octagon and connected with a left hook. After some academic shots to follow up the finish, this would mark the second TKO finish Hooker has endured since entering the UFC in 2014 (the first finish came against Edson Barboza via body shot TKO).
Afterward, with time to clear his head, Dan Hooker attributes Chandler’s performance to coincidence.
“Oh, I would absolutely love that, but I know full well (that) if you want a rematch, you need to earn a rematch,” Hooker said to Submission Radio. “I haven’t fought since then. He challenged for a title. I feel like and a lot of other people feel like that fight doesn’t go that way 9 times out of 10, so I don’t feel like he would actively hunt that fight. I feel like him and Gaethje, I feel like stylistically that’s a terrible fight for Chandler. I feel like Gaethje has the perfect style to kind of tear him apart.
“Yeah, I would love that fight, but rematches don’t…it’s not like I’m gonna hold my breath for it. It’s not something that I feel like is gonna happen.”
Despite losing to Chandler, Hooker admits that being paired with “Iron Mike” was a favorable stylistic matchup for him. “The Hangman” isn’t holding his head on a rematch with the former title challenger but definitely would seize the opportunity should he collect a win or two in the near future.
Would you like to see Dan Hooker and Michael Chandler run it back eventually?
