Dan Hooker was supposed to cap off 2023 with another high-profile fight, but he expects it will be another few months before he steps into the octagon again.
A broken arm forced Hooker out of the UFC Austin co-main event opposite Bobby Green, which would have marked Hooker’s second outing of the year. “The Hangman” won a thrilling split decision over Jalin Turner this past July at UFC 290 to string together consecutive wins for the first time since 2020.
However, his plans to finish the season strong were cut short when he had to undergo surgery for the arm injury suffered in the Turner fight. This is the same arm Hooker previously injured and he elaborated on why he had to pull out of the Green fight during an appearance on The MMA Hour.
“It’s the exact same spot,” Hooker said. “Speaking with the surgeon, it just never healed properly. It actually never healed. It never set into place and by the time that I realized that it’s not healing, I was too deep in. I was too close to the fight, everything was booked, so I was just kind of going out of my way to protect it and not let it get hurt.
“Then my second-to-last sparring session, one of my sparring partners whipped a kick out and put it on the right spot and just blew it right through. So I had the same surgery, just a bigger plate put in, and then they drilled some bone marrow out of my hip and then injected it into the spot where it’s not healing just to ensure it heals up.”
Hooker, 33, also dealt with a hand injury this year, which caused his fight with Turner to be postponed from UFC 285. He’s typically been one of the promotion’s most active fighters, with 2023 being the first year that he hasn’t fought twice since making his UFC debut nine years ago.
Were it up to him, Hooker admitted that he would have competed with a broken arm against Green, something his team thankfully prevented him from doing.
“I’ll be back to training in three months,” Hooker said. “I just never let it set at the start. They gave me a smaller brace and it allowed me to use it and then I was just doing stuff with it and lifting weights. So at this time they’ve put me in a concrete cast, they’re not letting me—there’s just absolutely no faith involved, which I need, I need to be protected from myself. So it’s just set in stone.
“I’m playing everything by the book this time. I’m not breaking any rules. I’m going to get this thing healed up. Yeah, I think five months is a good target I’ve set myself.”
Hooker believes the ship has sailed on the Green fight and doubts they will be re-booked against one another, especially after Green was brutally knocked out by Turner, who stepped in on short notice.
That leaves Hooker’s schedule open once again, not that he’s in a rush to call anyone out. If anything, he expects his next matchup to come to him once the top of the division sorts itself out.
“I’m not going to talk s*** with a broken arm and call people out,” Hooker said. “By the time I get back there, the whole division would have changed. I saw a tweet this morning, no one in the top 15 has a fight for lightweight. Like, no one is booked with a fight. So by the time I get back to training and get back to action, two or three months, the whole division will be booked up.
“All you have to think is who don’t anyone want to fight? And then that’s probably who I’ll end up fighting.”
