Dan Hooker isn’t exactly sure when he’ll be able to return home to New Zealand.
“When I go back is ‘as soon as I get a spot,’” laughed the UFC lightweight, who competes for the second time in a little over a month this weekend at UFC 267 at Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi.
After having all kinds of difficulties getting a visa and getting out of the country for his fight with Nasrat Haqparast at UFC 266 in Las Vegas on Sept. 25, Hooker was set to return to his home country, which has been in a lockdown for the last three months and operates on a re-entry lottery system where nationals queue up to see if their number is pulled, allowing them to enter the country.
He’d earned a unanimous decision win over Haqparast to cement his standing as one of the top lightweights in the world and had a voucher to get back into the country. All that stood between him and a reunion with his wife and daughter was a long flight and a familiar quarantine upon arrival.
Then the UFC called with an offer to replace injured former champion Rafael Dos Anjos in a clash with surging contender Islam Makhachev.
“At first when they were like, ‘Islam needs someone to fight,’ I was like, ‘Awf — he should have thought about that when I offered,’” said Hooker, who had lobbied to face the fifth-ranked standout after Makhachev submitted Thiago Moises to extend his winning streak to eight this summer. “Initially I was kind of like that, thinking he’s saying, ‘Jump!’ so why would I say, ‘How high?’
“Once the UFC came to me, I could just tell by the tone that they were asking for a solid, and they’ve been pretty incredible to me over the years. The major thing was obviously not returning to New Zealand and being away from my family — that was head and shoulders above everything — but they already had the plan loaded; they could fly my family out and take care of all of that.
“They knew what they were asking me to do, so they sorted everything out,” added Hooker. “Once that was sorted — the fight and fighting him, that’s nothing to me. That was never in any kind of consideration for me; it was just the life stuff.”
So rather than return home, Hooker was set up in Las Vegas, rooming with his wrestling coach, Frank Hickman, and training at both the UFC Performance Institute and Syndicate MMA, readying for this weekend’s clash with Makhachev.
He left for Abu Dhabi on Monday, and once the fight is over, he’ll return to Las Vegas, where his wife and daughter will join him.
“I haven’t seen my immediate family — my parents and my sisters — or anyone like that for the last three months as it is due to COVID lockdowns, and they don’t look like they’re going anywhere very quickly,” said Hooker, who completed his preparations for his September battle with Haqparast on his own, at home, as access to the City Kickboxing facility and training with his teammates and coaches was unavailable due to the lockdown restrictions.
“It’s really terrible,” he said of the country’s lottery system. “There are people that have been trying to get back for over a year; 18 months, two years people have been trying to get back into New Zealand, but they’re unable to return.”
The obstacles to preparing and competing have prompted members of the team, including head coach Eugene Bareman and UFC middleweight champ Israel Adesanya, to openly discuss shifting the all-star camp to the United States, thereby making it easy for the host of talented fighters on the team to compete more frequently and travel more freely.
And now that he’s going to be posted up in “The Fight Capital of the World,” Hooker believes fans will get an even better understanding of how eager and game he is to compete.
“I feel like being in Las Vegas and training in Las Vegas, people are going to get the opportunity to see how crazy I really am,” he said with a laugh. “Being in New Zealand and dealing with visas, there are a lot of opportunities that I have jumped at, but no matter what you do, you can’t get a visa in time or something like that comes up and gets in the way.
“But being here and having absolutely no roadblocks to getting inside of that cage, being five minutes down the road from the UFC APEX or T-Mobile Arena, people are going to get a chance to see me really be me.
“I will take absolutely anything,” he added, cackling with excitement. “You get through this fight and someone pulls out of (the fight between Justin Gaethje and Michael Chandler) — I’m in; someone pulls out of (the title fight between Dustin Poirier and Charles Oliveira) — I’m in. Las Vegas Dan Hooker is a different beast!”
He breaks into laughter, and while the possibilities of seeing the durable and dangerous veteran cross the threshold into the Octagon with greater frequency while marooned in the Nevada desert is intoxicating, anyone that has followed the sport already knows that Hooker is a staunch adherent to the “Anyone, Anywhere, Any Time” doctrine.
There is no better example of that than this clash with Makhachev.
Long considered the “heir to the throne” when his long-time friend and training partner Khabib Nurmagomedov ruled the lightweight ranks, the 30-year-old Makhachev has taken another step toward claiming the position Nurmagomedov abdicated a little over a year ago following his second-round submission win over Gaethje.
Already this year, the talented lightweight from Dagestan has earned submission wins over Drew Dober and Thiago Moises to extend his winning streak to eight, climbing to No. 5 in the divisional rankings and becoming the one guy no one in the division was in a hurry to face.
No one other than Hooker, that is.
“A lot of people say (they’ll fight anyone, at any time), but when push comes to shove, their actions don’t match their words,” began the all-action fighter from Auckland, who carries a 21-10 record into Saturday’s event from Abu Dhabi. “Me? I’ve been saying it my entire career.
“The amount of times I’ve put my hand up for things and nothing has come of it,” he continued, his voice trailing off momentarily as he recalled the opportunities that have gone by the boards. “As long as I’m fit and healthy, I will fight — that’s just the way I am and the way I approach it.”
While many of his contemporaries meticulously map out their careers, seeking out only fights that carry them forward and squatting on their rankings if their ideal pairing doesn’t exist, Hooker continues to take the opposite approach, raising his hand for every opportunity possible and accepting whatever chances he’s given to step into the cage and compete, regardless of whether he’s facing an unranked opponent or a divisional boogeyman like Makhachev.
“I’m not concerned about anything but the championship, except being the champion,” said Hooker, who officially stands at No. 6 in the UFC Fighter Rankings. “These numbers don’t mean anything to me. I could be No. 2, No. 1, but if I don’t have the belt, it doesn’t matter.
“I’m not going to sit back and protect a No. 8 or a No. 9 in the world; that’s completely useless to me. What am I going to do: tell my grandkids I was the eighth-best fighter on the planet?
“I jumped on the Michael Chandler fight and I’d do it again,” continued Hooker, who welcomed the former Bellator champion to the Octagon for the first time in January, suffering a first-round knockout loss. “They needed someone to step up and he was unranked. The Nasrat fight, that’s unranked again, so that’s back-to-back unranked fighters.
“I just wanted to fight the best guys,” he added. “I want the best guy I can possible get my hands on, and if I beat the best people, I will have to earn that title shot. And when I’m standing in that position — fighting for that belt — I would have fought the absolute best my entire career, and that will prepare me mentally for that moment.”
With an attitude like that and having sacrificed a return home to test himself against one of the division’s best — on short-notice no less — again this weekend, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for fans not to root for “The Hangman” each and every time he steps into the Octagon.
“It’s kind of cool that people can see that you weren’t full of s*** the whole time,” he began with a laugh. “It’s really cool to see a lot of people appreciating you for being you, because it’s not like I’m putting on a show or I took this fight so people would congratulate me and give me a pat on the back.
“It is kind of cool, but I have so much more left, so it’s like, ‘It’s not time to take my roses.’”
He’ll take those later, when he’s retired from the sport and sitting on the porch with the grandkids, regaling them with stories about his glory days in the UFC and his “have fists, will travel” approach to his craft.
Maybe.
“Unless I’ve got the belt, they will never know about it,” Hooker said, howling.
But we will, and we’ll tell them about how Ol’ Granddad was one of the toughest, most game customers around.
