Lightweight Dan Hooker fires back at claims he ‘laughed’ at teammate Volkanovski being KO’d, says the viral clip was him in “disbelief.”
In Israel Adesanya’s reaction video to Volkanovski vs Topuria, some users tried to claim Hooker laughed when Ilia landed the brutal punch that put his teammate away – with one clip somehow gaining over 590K views on X (Twitter).
Firing back online, the fan-favorite lightweight explained how he was simply laughing in “disbelief” at what he had just witnessed, just like the rest of us, and at how “dumb” the sport can be sometimes.
Dan Hooker fires back at fans trying to instigate online drama
UFC veteran Dan Hooker is as straight-talking and loyal to his teammates as they come, it’s why he’s known as the unofficial captain of City Kickboxing’s team of world-class athletes.
It’s also exceedingly rare to get under Hooker’s skin, which is why it came as a surprise to see the lightweight contender viciously firing back at fans claiming he had been caught ‘laughing’ at Volkanovski being knocked out.
“99.99999% of sh- never gets under my skin but bro I ride for my team mates to the death, if you f- with my team I run it straight.”
Responding to the viral video clip on X (Twitter), ‘The Hangman’ explained that he was simply laughing “at how dumb this sport is” and that fans are far too quick to jump on the bandwagon of online drama.
“Volk in my opinion is the best to ever glove up, he’s looking great and from my understanding of the game-plan had begun to establish ascendency. Then he just gets caught, disbelief and then I thought ‘what a dumb sport we play and laughed at myself.’”
Hooker is riding a two-fight winning streak, a KO win over Claudio Puelles, and a hard-fought decision win over Jalin Turner in what was undoubtedly one of the best fights of 2023.
The 23-12 Kiwi is ranked #10 in the world and currently doesn’t have his next fight scheduled.
From those around Hooker in the UFC lightweight rankings, two potential opponents could come in the form of #8 Rafael Fiziev or #7 Beneil Dariush, both of whom are on two-fight losing streaks and are looking for their first contests of 2024.