‘The Hangman’ produced an incredible display of toughness to help turn his UFC career around.
Dan Hooker has always been an all-action fighter who has put on some incredible bouts as a staple of the lightweight roster.
The 155-pound division has produced many instant classics in recent years and Hooker isn’t opposed to enduring a car crash to come out with the win.
That’s exactly what he had to do at UFC 290 back in 2023 where he produced back-to-back wins for the first time since 2020.
Hooker’s recent trajectory has earned him a lot of praise but it didn’t come easy in his three-round war with ‘The Tarantula’.
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Dan Hooker suffered multiple injuries despite coming out on top against Jalin Turner
At 2023’s International Fight Week card, Dan Hooker looked to build on his much-needed win over Claudio Puelles when he faced another one of the division’s most dangerous strikers.
Jalin Turner had his five-fight win streak halted by Mateusz Gamrot earlier on in 2023 but now looked to bounce back and throughout the first-round, he looked on course to do just that.
Turner’s excellent timing and range earned him a 10-9 across the board in the opening round but things changed once Hooker started to make it into a brawl.
Somehow, ‘The Hangman’ was able to withstand some significant damage in the second, including a head kick that landed totally clean and would’ve floored most men.
Hooker continued to push and eventually found his breakthrough towards the end of the second which he continued in the third by relentlessly pressuring a tiring ‘Tarantula’.
By the end of the fight, the hair of the New Zealander was equal parts blonde and crimson.
Despite one judge scoring the third round in favor of Turner, Hooker got his hand raised via a split decision and detailed the injuries that he had suffered after the fight.
Hooker broke his arm in the fight and told TheMacLife’s Oscar Willis that he thought it was from Turner kicking his forearm but he wasn’t sure when it happened.
“I haven’t actually gone back and watched the fight. I don’t know at what point, I want to say the second. I want to say it started going numb in the second round, I want to say that but I was still obviously throwing it. It’s like, what are you going to do? It’s still going to be broken. You want a broken arm and be a loser or?”
Hooker also suffered a fractured orbital and he placed the blame for this injury and the head kick he ate on his arm not responding in the correct way after it was broken.
“I think when he kicked me in the head, so that’s what I want to attribute to getting kicked in the head like that. I want to say in the second, it’s because my arm was broken.”
After coming through the fight with a few battle scars, they weren’t major concerns for ‘The Hangman’ who is no stranger to being put through the recovery ringer after stepping inside the Octagon.
“They did a CT scan, it’s like an orbital fracture but they’re actually, when they say orbital fracture, it sounds really serious but they’re actually rather common. Most guys won’t get CT scans but most guys after fights will have small orbital fractures so it’s quite common so I’m not too dramatic about that. That definitely was when he kicked me in the head.”
Dan Hooker’s win over Jalin Turner helped propel his career resurgence
After coming into his main event clash with Dustin Poirier in 2020 on a three-fight win streak, Dan Hooker went on to win just one of his next five.
At UFC 281, he returned to the lightweight division and defeated Claudio Puelles with his win over Turner coming the next year.
His third consecutive win, and one of the biggest of his career, came at UFC 305 this past August where he defeated Mateusz Gamrot to climb to #6 in the lightweight rankings.
‘The Hangman’ has overcome many difficult injuries in his career but this time around, it’s a setback that happened before he got in the cage that has halted his progress after Hooker withdrew from a huge fight with Justin Gaethje at UFC 313 on March 8.
Jalin Turner is set to return on that same night where he looks to rebound from a loss to Renato Moicano by taking on a fellow dangerous striker in Ignacio Bahamondes.