A lightweight fight between Al Iaquinta and Dan Hooker has been booked for UFC 243 in Melbourne, Austrlia on October 5th.
Iaquinta is coming off a tough unanimous decision loss against Donald Cerrone last time out in May. Prior to that he’d picked up a significant win over Kevin Lee to bounce back from an unsuccessful short-notice attempt to take the lightweight title from Khabib Nurmagomedov.
However, in total Iaquinta has won six of his last eight fights and is currently ranked No.6 in the division.
As for Hooker, he’s coming off a big knockout win over James Vick last month. That came after he’d suffered his first loss in his last five fights against Edson Barboza, who finished him by TKO in the third round.
Hooker’s wins before that had been against the likes of Ross Pearson, Marc Diakiese, Jim Miller and Gilbert Burns, but he’s still ranked just No.14 in the division despite his best efforts, so a higher profile fight with the likes of Iaquinta was just what he was looking for.
Iaquinta vs. Hooker joins a UFC 243 card that is set to be headlined by a middleweight title fight between current champion Robert Whittaker and interim titleholder Israel Adesanya.
