Treading water.
That’s what Dan Hooker says his UFC career will feel like if he keeps toiling in the lightweight division, where he’s 2-3 the last two years, and currently ranked eighth.
At 31, the Kiwi has no time to hang around. After almost five years chasing lightweight glory, he’s dropping back down to featherweight for his next fight against Arnold Allen at UFC London on March 19. It’s a fight Hooker expects to open the door to the best in the division and reboot his MMA career.
Allen, a 28-year-old Brit, is undefeated in his eight UFC fights so far and is the No. 7-ranked featherweight in the promotion.
“It excites me to get out there and get the opportunity to stop a run like that,” Hooker told The AllStar recently. “That’s a huge accomplishment in itself to reach that sort of achievement. So, the opportunity to get out there to stop it and take all of that momentum that he’s carrying of those eight wins and take it for myself, that’s what excites me about this fight.
Beating Allen “gets you one of those huge name guys in the division. That’s really my main motivation for going down to featherweight and for making the cut, to put myself straight back in the mix,” he said.
The top fighters in the lightweight division are all legitimate contenders to Charles Oliveira’s belt. Hooker’s recent losses have come at the hands of three of them: Dustin Poirier, Islam Makhachev and Michael Chandler, underscoring the difficulty in getting a title shot himself.
“The reality of the situation is I’ve lost to three out of the top five guys,” he said. “Obviously, circumstances could have been different and then potentially the results would change. But it doesn’t really excite me, treading water at 55 for the next year.”
So he’s decided to take advantage of the opportunity presented to him.
“Turning down a fight while you’re young and healthy is just unfathomable to me. It’s such a small period of time that you have the opportunity to be young and get after it and really chase goals and do things. So I’m just making the most of it.”
