Dan Hooker faces Dustin Poirier in the next UFC Fight Night and will have to shake off the Paul Felder curse
Dan Hooker was on Ariel Helwani’s MMA show as he spoke about his upcoming UFC clash against Dustin Poirier.
The Kiwi star has sounded confident leading up to the fight and even got some help from the US Embassy to get into the United States.
Travelling to the US is a bit of a problem due to the coronavirus, but an agent was able to get Hooker by getting him a Visa.
While that was a stroke of fortune as the agent called Hooker, Helwani spoke about the Paul Felder curse.
This isn’t similar to the Khabib-Ferguson curse where the two lightweights just cannot meet for a fight.
Basically, anyone who has fought Felder ends up losing his next fight. From the last nine fights that Felder has been involved in, his rival has only won once and that was Charles Oliveira.
Hooker was the last person to face Felder, and he defeated his rival at UFC Fight Night: Felder vs Hooker.
Helwani brought all this up and Hooker initially laughed before suggesting that the MMA journalist was trying to jinx him.
“I didn’t see that, you trying to jinx me?”
Helwani had to check on this and claimed that maybe this is an effect that Felder has on his rivals and how tough he is, to which Hooker responded:
“I can attest to that. The guy can take some shots. Hands down, the best poker face I have ever fought.”
Picking up on weaknesses
Hooker continued praising Felder by suggesting that the UFC Lightweight doesn’t give any signs that opponents can use, something that the Kiwi star likes to do.
“He never showed me that, so I never knew exactly when I should start picking it up and taking more risks and pulling the trigger.”
Dan Hooker has a MMA record of 20 wins and eight losses, and it will be interesting to see how he does against the former interim champion Poirier.
The Kiwi star claimed he was ready for a title shot after all this, and sounded confident of beating his rival.
Hooker has won his last three UFC fights and has even defeated big names such as Al Iaquinta and Gilbert Burns.
The 30-year-old is in a stacked lightweight division. However, he has a chance of putting himself in the title discussion, should he defeat Poirier.
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