Dan Hooker will join his teammate Israel Adesanya at UFC 281.
Hooker vs. Puelles
Latin outlet forde.win was the first to report that Hooker will fight Peruvian fighter Claudio Puelles on November 12 at UFC 281, which will be held at the iconic Madison Square Garden arena in New York. The matchup was confirmed by Puelles and his management, Iridium Sports. Hooker teased fight news this past weekend.
Breakdown
Hooker (21-12) will defend his No. 13 lightweight ranking when he takes on Puelles in November. ‘The Hangman’ has hit a rough patch in his career, losing four out of his last five. In his last outing, he fought top prospect Arnold Allen in the UFC’s return to London but got stopped in the first round. Hooker’s only win in the last two years came at UFC 266 when he defeated Nasrat Haqparast via unanimous decision.
The 32-year-old will join his City Kickboxing teammates, Brad Riddell and Adesanya, who are also on the card.
Puelles (12-2) has been on an absolute role since returning from his two-year layoff in 2021. Last June, he handed Jordan Leavitt his first professional loss, and then he returned six months later to submit Chris Gruetzemacher. Then, in April this year, he submitted UFC legend Clay Guida in three minutes with a kneebar- his third in the UFC.
UFC 281
UFC 281 will be headlined by Adesanya vs. Alex Pereira and will go down on November 12.
The rest of the card currently looks like this:
- Israel Adesanya vs. Alex Pereira – for the middleweight title
- Carla Esparza vs. Zhang Weili – for the women’s strawweight title
- Dan Hooker vs. Claudio Puelles
- Renato Moicano vs. Brad Riddell
- Erin Blanchfield vs. Molly McCann
- Dominick Reyes vs. Ryan Spann
- Seungwoo Choi vs. Mike Trizano
- Silvana Gomez Juarez vs. Karolina Kowalkiewicz
- Ottman Azaitar vs. Matt Frevola
