Dan Hooker was not happy to see Hasbulla in the cage after he lost at UFC 267.
Heading into his short-notice fight with Khabib Nurmagomedov’s protege, Islam Makhachev, at UFC 267, Hooker made it clear that he did not like Hasbulla Magomedov. The social media sensation said that he was coming to Abu Dhabi to attend the event, simply to support Makhachev, and this rubbed the New Zealander the wrong way.
So, to add insult to injury after a quick and devastating first-round submission loss, none other than Khabib himself was seen inside the Octagon with Hasbulla atop his shoulders.
Speaking to The Mac Life, Hooker explained that seeing this after losing made him frustrated, and he even considered chucking Hasbulla off of the former lightweight champion’s shoulders in the event Hasbulla tried his signature sneak-attack punch move.
“That was pretty hard. Like, I’m standing there, ‘cos I know his (Hasbulla) trick where he does the photo and then as soon as he gets the photo, he punches the guy, and then Khabib comes over. You’ve gotta take it, you’ve gotta wear that sh*t; that’s just part of it, that’s part of losing. You’ve gotta stand there in the ring, let the other guy get his roses and you’ve gotta just stand there and take it on the chin,” Hooker said.
“But Hasbulla comes over and I was just like, I shook his hand and I was just like, ‘If this tiny motherf*cker touches me.’ I was like, ‘I’mma ace him right off Khabib’s shoulders, like, I’m not in the mood.’ [LAUGHS] But he didn’t, so that was all good.”
Luckily, it did not come to that, and Dan Hooker did not feel compelled to throw Hasbulla around. Dana White has suggested that the Russian little person may have something going with the UFC soon and is even rumored to have offered big bucks to try to give him a fight in the UFC. So who knows, maybe a fight between these two could go down in the future, mano y mano, without the help of the Dagestan squad.
Watch the full video with Dan Hooker below:
