Dan Hooker earned a big win over Mateusz Gamrot at UFC 305 on Saturday night and he’s claimed that the UFC are now quickly making moves to match him up with Charles Oliveira next.
“Yeah, they want Charles [Oliveira],” Hooker told The MacLife following his win after talking with UFC exec Hunter Campbell backstage.
“That’s a good fight, but there’s heaps of cool sh*t I could do. The lay of the land is pretty crazy. It’s such a wild sport, as well. We’ll see how it plays out.”
Hooker is now on a three-fight winning streak, having also beaten Claudio Puelles by TKO, followed by a split-decision victory over Jalin Turner, but it’s the win over Gamrot that’s really sent him to the next level, propelling him from No.11 in the rankings all the way up to No.5.
With Oliveira currently ranked No.2, a win against the former champ would put Hooker in a strong position to contend for the title, but ‘The Hangman’ is willing to up the ante even further by suggesting he could fight the No.1 ranked Arman Tsarukyan next instead.
“I couldn’t care less, mate,” Hooker said of who his next opponent will be. “(I’ll fight) all of them – even Arman. I said to Hunter, I said to Sean (Shelby), I’d like to fight Arman because screw it: We’ll go the toughest way to the title we possibly can. That’s (Jalin) Turner, Gamrot, Arman, Islam. I just don’t care. I would prefer the hardest road to the title that I possibly could. … I hate the pr*ck. I told Hunter I’m going to smash his face in.”
Hooker’s sudden rise into the Top 5 and talk of facing a leading contender is somewhat surprising given that just a couple of years ago he’d lost four of his last five fights.
Admittedly that was against top-flight competition too, including a unanimous decision loss to Dustin Poirier, a TKO defeat at the hands of Michael Chandler, a 1st round submission loss to future champion Islam Makhachev and an ill-fated drop down to 145lbs that resulted in a 1st round beatdown against Arnold Allen.
