Over the years in his time in Bellator, Michael Chandler has had some tough fights and crazy wars. However Daniel Cormier thinks that the toughest is yet to come, when he takes on Dan Hooker at UFC 257.
While Cormier may not be the most devoted fan of Bellator, he is familiar with Chandler. Like most MMA fans, he has seen the wars that Mike has had in the time he spent in Bellator’s lightweight division.
Who could forget the epic battles that Chandler had with Eddie Alvarez, that saw both men put it all on the line. Not to mention the insane pair of bouts with Patricky Pitbull, all of which were fight of the year contenders when they happened.
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Daniel Cormier Says Hooker Will Be Chandler’s Toughest Fight
These types of wars is what makes fans excited to see Michael Chandler make his UFC debut. Despite these crazy tough fights, Daniel Cormier thinks that things are going to get harder for Mike in his firs fight in the new promotion.
Speaking recently during the DC and Helwani show, the former champ-champ expressed how excited he was to see Chandler make his debut. That being said, he feels like Dan Hooker is a tough stylistic matchup.
“If you want to see whether or not Michael Chandler is ready for the elite of the division, he has to fight and beat Dan Hooker which is not an easy thing to do,” Cormier explained.
“Outside of (Patricky) Pitbull, who I think is fantastic, this will be the toughest fight (Chandler) has ever had.
“When you look at who Dan Hooker is today, in his absolute prime, coming off a main event fight with Dustin Poirier, where they went tit for tat over 25 minutes, this is easily one of the biggest fights Chandler has ever been in.”
In addition to that, Cormier explains that fighting in the co-main event under Conor McGregor, a win will boost Chandler’s stock exponentially. In fact, he thinks that whoever wins will call out McGregor, which will be the right call.
“For Chandler to be in the co-main event, it puts him in a perfect spot, and Dan Hooker too. If I’m Dan Hooker and I win, I’m immediately saying something about McGregor,” Cormier added.
“Whoever wins at 155lb on that fight card, you say something about McGregor because guess what? McGregor doesn’t have the ability to not respond.
“He will say something back, because he gets going and he just kind of says something. He’ll say something and elevate you. There’s a level of stardom that comes with fighting on and with this dude that I’ve never seen.
“Look at what happened after Khabib fought him. Khabib went from like 2 million followers to like 12 overnight. So I’m calling him out if I’m Michael Chandler and I’m glad to be in that spot.”
Do you agree with Daniel Cormier with the difficulty of this fight for Michael Chandler? How do you see his fight with Dan Hooker going down?
