Kiwi lightweight star Dan Hooker suffered another injury setback when he sustained a re-broken arm as he prepared for his bout against Bobby Green at UFC Austin. Now he’s targeting the UFC’s upcoming landmark pay-per-view for his Octagon return.
Chatting to Submission Radio, Hooker explained how the injury came about, and his mental state after befalling the same fate twice.
“Sparring yesterday, (I) copped a bit of a kick,” he explained.
“Got sent to an X-ray. She’s custard. It just broke in the same place, and it kind of is what it is.”
Hooker fractured his arm and broke his orbital bone in a split-decision win over Jalin Turner at UFC 290 in July, and was looking to return on the December 2 card in Texas. Unfortunately, Hooker reinjured his arm and he now faces another lengthy spell on the sidelines.
“I took a risk. I obviously came back a little quicker than… yeah, like, it’s all on me, brother,” he admitted.
“I rushed to come back, I wanted to fight. I knew the risk of coming back that quickly, and we rolled the dice and we come up snake eyes, baby.
“Yeah, just sparring yesterday. Bro, one of those things. I blocked a thousand kicks in the last couple of months and just one hit on the right spot and it just, yeah. It is what it is.”
Hooker said the blame for him attempting a swift return and getting reinjured lies squarely with him.
“No one put a gun to my head and told me that,” he said.
“Everyone was kind of kicking their can down the road and telling me to wait, and I pushed it, I hurried it along. I forced it.
“It’s on me. I’m just hungry. You know what I mean? It happened. It happened again. It’s the double-edged sword of being obsessed with something. Sometimes you hold it so tight that you crush it.
“It’s either broken in the exact same spot – which means that just the bone didn’t fuse properly, the bone was never fused properly and it was inevitable that this was gonna happen again – or it’s a new break.
“It is what it is. (The UFC are) gutted, gutted for me. I was just that close. It’s just one of those things. I could smell it. I could taste it. I could feel the crowd. I was on fire.
“When you get that close, you can taste the air in the arena. You can picture being in there, you can feel how it’s gonna play out. And to be that close and to not get it…. But hey, it just makes you hungrier for the next one, right? I took a risk. I’ll just go back. I’ll get it healed properly, and I’ll be back.”
And in terms of a timeline, Hooker has already earmarked a potential return for the UFC’s landmark UFC 300 show next spring/early-summer.
“I’ll be back. UFC 300 in five months, that’s a good target,” he said.
“Everything happens for a reason. That one wasn’t meant to be. Yeah, UFC 300 in five months. Speaking with the surgeon, that’s a comfortable target for three months of rehab and the training camp. So, on to the future.”