Dan Hooker was ready to step into the cage with Justin Gaethje at UFC 313, a lightweight clash fans couldn’t wait to see. Imagine him in the gym, dialing in his final sparring rounds, unleashing those wild hooks. Then, smack, he tags a teammate’s head at the wrong angle, and his left hand pays the price. Just like that, his Vegas fight night vanishes, leaving Hooker to deal with the fallout.
He laid it out for Sky Sport NZ: “One of the paws is not doing too well,” Hooker said. “I was sparring last night, just as I do, just letting some hooks go, just throwing some bombs down range, and I just caught one of the boys on the top of the dome with my knuckle.”
At first, he thought it was nothing serious, just a tweak. “I didn’t think much of it. They sent me off to get a CT scan,” he said. The scan told a different story—a fractured hand, and his shot at Gaethje was done.
Hooker’s Ready to Bounce Back
Hooker’s not the type to quit, though. Even with a jacked-up hand, he was cracking jokes about fighting anyway.
“I obviously still would fight,” he said with a laugh. “I’ll be like, ‘Hey, can I have one large glove and one 3XL?”
You can almost hear him chuckling, picturing himself swinging with a giant glove. The UFC wasn’t having it, though, and the doctors nixed that plan quick.
What’s next? Hooker’s keeping cool about it.
“We’ll see if we can kick this fight down the road,” he said, hinting at a future throwdown. “We’ll just wait and see, baby.”
The real gut punch is for the fans, though. “It’s just unfortunate that it was this close. Obviously gutted for all the fans that I know that were excited for this fight. That’s probably the main thing. The lords of war were not happy,” he added, tossing a sly nod to the fight gods who threw him this curveball.
For now, Gaethje’s on the hunt for a new foe, while Hooker heals up that banged-up hand. But write him off at your own risk—this Kiwi brawler’s got plenty of fight left. The Gaethje matchup might be paused, but it’s not dead yet. Keep watching, folks. The “Hangman” doesn’t stay down long.
