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Dan Hooker: 'You Can't Teach Ticker'
Looking To Push His Winning Streak To Three At UFC 305, Dan Hooker Believes He Has The Tools To Beat The Best In The World
If you got by the beautiful steak and fries on Dan Hooker’s Instagram post on August 3, you would note that as he celebrated his new five-fight contract with the UFC, he wrote, “Can’t kill a weed.”
And that may be why everyone loves “The Hangman.”
“We grow in the concrete, mate,” Hooker laughs. “You can't get rid of us.”
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Truth be told, we do want to get rid of weeds, but Hooker, we want to keep forever. The New Zealand native is not just a fighter’s fighter; he’s everybody’s fighter, the guy you want to be when you’re a kid and acting out imaginary battles in your mind. When you do that, no one wrestles and controls their way to a decision; you engage in a bloody toe-to-toe war that, win or lose, you’re proud of. And that was the point of this whole thing when Hooker decided to go down this most unique of career paths after thoughts of joining the army were dashed.
“I fell into this so young,” he said. “I remember when I was 18 and just before I found this, I was thinking about joining the army. That had definitely crossed my mind, but then I googled ‘Is New Zealand at war with anyone’ and we weren't at war with anyone. There's no point in joining the army if I can't have a fight with anyone. Then I started training shortly after. So luckily, New Zealand wasn't currently at war, or I would probably be down a completely different career path.”
Yes, he googled it. We both laugh.
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“I said, ‘Mate, I'm not signing up to get peace; I'm signing up to knock some people out of their socks.’”
No war is a good thing, and so is Hooker deciding that fighting was the other option for him, where he has certainly been knocking people out of their socks since he turned pro in 2009. Fifteen years and 35 fights later, he’s still going strong as he looks to extend his current winning streak to three when he meets Mateusz Gamrot at UFC 305 this weekend, and while the lightweight title, big fights and all that goes along with them are still on the “to do” list, in his formative years, it was never about fame, fortune or glory. It was more than that to the 34-year-old Auckland native, who has only recently come around to the reality that he’s not like everybody else.
Dan Hooker Fight Week Interview | UFC 305
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Dan Hooker Fight Week Interview | UFC 305
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“I'm only kind of realizing that with age,” he said. “I used to think everyone thought like me. I used to think everyone in life attacks life the way I attack life. And it's only through experience and through age.”
That’s a beautiful thing, because while people will forget win-loss records, they’ll never forget how you made them feel. They’ll never forget Hooker, moments after beating Jalin Turner in July of last year with a broken arm, telling Joe Rogan in the Octagon that it was “just a scratch.”
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That’s immortal.
“You can't teach ticker,” Hooker said. “I think that's something you either got or you don't got. And yeah, that is a big part of it. When it all fades away, no one cares that you fought the number this and the number that; they remember how you made them feel in that moment. And it's also the way that I approach the sport, as well. I use martial arts as a tool to test my character and there's very few people that have had the opportunity to test their character to the extent which I've been able to test mine. A lot of people, they walk around thinking they're a tough guy and they have an idea of who they are as a person. I have, through martial arts, tested my character within an absolute inch of my life. So I know when I say, I am this, I'm that, I will go to this extent, now no one will argue with me. They believe me because I've been doing it so long that it's a fact. I have an insurmountable amount of evidence to back up my statement.”
Truer words have never been spoken, but once you test your character and prove yourself to yourself, what’s next? What’s the motivation to keep putting yourself through hell in the gym and then do it again at an even hotter level in the Octagon?
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“I just know within myself that when I'm performing, when I'm competing at the extent of my abilities, that I can beat any man in the world,” said Hooker. “I know that for a fact within myself that on any given night, if I get the opportunity under those lights that I can have that belt and I can raise it for one time, regardless of what anyone else says. I don't listen to other people and other people's opinions. I truly know I've been in there with the best guys in the world. I've been in there with the champ, I know where I went wrong, and I know where I can correct those things.”
Full Fight | Dan Hooker vs Jalin Turner
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Full Fight | Dan Hooker vs Jalin Turner
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And Dan Hooker knows that if a fight breaks out, he’s willing to go to whatever lengths he has to in order to be the last one standing. That’s not saying he’s superhuman. He’s just different.
Good different.
“Everyone has a little voice in the back of their head,” Hooker admits. “You get put in these difficult situations and I have that little voice in the back of my head just going, ‘Yeah, you could tap’ or you could do this or you could do that and then things would be over. And no one will know, but I would know within myself. The story will be, oh, you got caught in a submission; oh, you just got clipped. But I would know within myself that I quit on myself. And that's it. I've been knocked out, I've been choked out. I can live with that. I can live with someone physically stopping my body to the point where I can no longer continue. That is something I am comfortable with. I don't lose any pride within myself, within my character as a person. But if I listen to that little voice and I quit or I look for a way out or I tapped or I did this or that, I will know. It's not about proving anything to anyone else. It's just a battle within myself, proving within myself, testing my character within myself.”
UFC 305: Du Plessis vs Adesanya took place live from RAC Arena in Perth, Western Australia on August 17, 2024. See the final Prelim & Main Card Results, Official Scorecards and Who Won Bonuses - and relive the action on UFC FIGHT PASS!
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