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UFC 290 goes down this weekend in Las Vegas, NV with a 10pm ET start time and what looks to be a stacked main card of action. One of those PPV bouts, however, almost ended up in the scrap heap after Jalin Turner missed weight for his lightweight fight against Dan Hooker.
Turner has the distinction of being one of the tallest fighters on the UFC’s lightweight roster, coming in at 6’3″, a distinction he shares with Joel Alvarez and Ignacio Bahamondes. Unsurprisingly all three men have now had trouble hitting the lightweight division limit.
UFC lightweight Jalin Turner weighs in at 157 lbs stays on card
Unfortunately for Turner, not only did he fail to make the lightweight limit for his fight against Hooker, he also has the designation of being the only fighter at UFC 290 to not hit his mark on the scales. On the plus side, however, it looks like Hooker has agreed to a catchweight bout, with UFC officials reporting that the bout will go ahead as planned, and that Turner has been fined 20% of his show money as a result.
While Turner debuted at welterweight, against Vicente Luque in a short notice bout—and took a catchweight bout against Brok Weaver—this marks the first time in seven trips to the Octagon as a lightweight that the ‘Tarantula’ has failed to make 155 lbs.
Dan Hooker has had other drama to worry about
While there’s no doubt that fighting Turner has been at the forefront of Dan Hooker’s mind lately, the New Zealander has stirred up plenty of other drama to keep himself occupied as well. Notably, in a recent interview with Submission Radio, he revealed feeling deeply offended by his manager’s attempts to book him in a fight with former Interim lightweight champion Tony Ferguson.
I messaged Ash, ‘Oh, what about this guy for the next fight?’ And he replied, ‘We asked for Tony Ferguson.’ I was so f—king offended. That sparked me. I was like, ‘Nah, fuck this,’” Hooker recalled. “The doctors were saying, ‘You gotta wait another month for your hand before you can get back into the training.’ I said, ‘F—k that.’ And I went and sparred the next day, cause I was so offended. I was like, that guy… that’s not what I wanna be, that’s not what I’m here for.”
But it’s not just Ferguson that’s had Hooker fired up. He also has been in a long, drawn out war of words with Islam Makhachev and his team, over allegations that Makhachev used banned IV treatments ahead of his bout with Hooker’s teammate, Alexander Volkanovski.
Hooker seemed to speak with absolute certainty of the claims, calling Makhachev a “cheating dog,” but months later has failed to produce any evidence that would back up his allegations. Interestingly, by USADA rules, the UFC itself wouldn’t necessarily have any issue with Makhachev’s potential IV use, if it was conducted under medical supervision. Australian MMA governing bodies could lay claim to the procedure as a violation of their rules, but don’t seem to have shown any interest in chasing the story down.
“There’s definitely something there, you know what I mean? Just because you don’t have…I don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes, or why it’s not why it didn’t go any further,” Hooker told reporters during UFC 290 fight week. “Maybe they didn’t have the evidence to get it over the line. But … where there’s smoke, there’s fire. O.J. Simpson’s walking around, you know what I mean? Would you invite him to your family barbecue? Probably not.”
UFC 290 takes place at the T-Mobile Arena on July 8th. The card is expected to be headlined by a featherweight title unification bout between Alexander Volkanovski and Yair Rodriguez. A flyweight title fight between Brandon Moreno and Alexandre Pantoja is set for the co-main.
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