Dan Hooker showed incredible toughness to emerge with a split-decision victory over Jalin Turner at UFC 290 on Saturday night in Las Vegas, and it’s even more impressive in hindsight after it emerged that he suffered both a broken arm and a broken orbital bone during the fight.
“I think it was a front kick in the first round that I think might have put a little crack in [my arm],” Hooker recalled on The MMA Hour show.
“If you look at it, just as round two starts, I look down at my arm because it’s not responding the way I want it to, and then in the second [round], he lands a couple more kicks and I think that breaks it.
“I definitely felt it in the second. I was like, “Something’s up here.” I couldn’t feel my right hand, and then it wasn’t until the third round, I dropped him and I tried to finish him, I was following up with punches, and it was one punch and I was like, ‘I’m going to throw my right hand anyways.
“I threw my right and I felt it completely go out of place. My whole right arm just went dead.”
Hooker also revealed that his compromised arm was the reason he took a head kick flush to the face during the fight.
“Second round, he booted me in the head — I would have liked to get my hand there but it just didn’t do what it was told,” Hooker said.
Hooker’s durability was on full display at that moment as he not only fought through that impact, but then stepped up a gear and took the fight to Turner.
“I hurt him at the end of that round and finished with the rear-naked choke wrapped up. So that’s a fight-ending sequence in round two.
“Round three, I was hurting him on the feet and then controlling him on the ground. It’s pretty hard to argue against that. I was pretty confident. I was confident that I got the job done.”
And indeed he did, getting the nod via split-decision, but in addition to the broken arm he also suffered a broken orbital bone in his face too, so he’ll now require surgery on both injuries before he’ll be able to return to action.
“[The broken arm is] pretty sore. But what are you going to do about it?” Hooker said.
“We’ll get it all fixed up and back to 100 percent in no time.”
