Dan Hooker revealed yesterday that he’s out of his UFC 313 co-main event fight with Justin Gaethje next month and now he’s explained how he suffered his fractured hand injury.
“One of the paws is not doing too well,” Hooker told Sky Sports New Zealand. “I was sparring last night, 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. I don’t think too much of it but they sent me off to get a CT scan. Had a little CT scan and they told me my hand is fractured.”
“So yeah, I obviously still would fight,” Hooker continued. “But with the medicals they squeeze your hands and [mimics being in pain]. So we’ll see how it all plays out. … We’ll see if we can kick this fight down the road or we’ll just wait and see.
“It’s 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, I think. The Lords of War were not happy, and they took it away from you.”
At this stage the UFC still hasn’t revealed whether Gaethje will remain on the UFC 313 card, but there’s already been a number of fighters signalling there interest in the match-up, including the likes of Mateusz Gamrot, Rafael Fiziev and Renato Moicano, so it certainly seems like there’s a good chance he will.
