The UFC on ESPN 12 card last weekend featured a pivotal lightweight fight as #5 ranked Dan Hooker took on former interim champion Dustin Poirier.
The fight promised a slug fest and delivered on it as well as the duo went on a back and forth 25 minutes war. At the end, Poirier was able to slightly edge Hooker via a close unanimous decision. However after the fight ended, Poirier was seen talking with Hooker in a way which indicated them clarifying some pre-fight trash talk.
Speaking in an interview with Submission Radio, the ‘Hangman’ revealed the duo got a chance to clear the air on issue. Interestingly it was in the hospital, because after a fight like that, they clearly needed one!
“We both went to the hospital, we ended up next to each other, but there was like a curtain in between us,” he said.“… And he’s like, ‘Dan, is that you?’ and then I hit him up about it. Because he was hitting me up about kind of looking through him and that’s what people were saying, I was looking past him. Talking about next opponents, but it’s what I said to him, ‘Bro, that’s who I was going to fight if I win, and I already knew who I wanna target if I’m coming off a loss’.
Hooker ended the conversation on a good note!
“That’s just the way I am. I just like to plan things. It’s not like I’m looking through him, it’s not that I went out there planning to lose, but if I lost I still know who I want to fight next to get back on track. I just explained it to him and then he said, ‘Yeah man I understand, I understand’, and then we just talked about our daughters. He’s got a young daughter as well, and we just wished each other all the best.”
Hooker has now shifted his focus towards former interim champion Tony Ferguson and a surging Charles Oliveira.