Dan Hooker vs Dustin Poirier Debrief
In losing to Dustin Poirier over the weekend, Aotearoa's Dan Hooker bumped his UFC lightweight stocks up a wee bit in playing his role in an epc fight. Many good judges have Poirier vs Hooker as a fight of the year candidate, slightly behind the brutal encounter between Zhang Weili and Joanna Jedrzejcyk prior to the lockdown and while it was a bummer to see Hooker lose, there will be further opportunities at the top of the lightweight division.
That's if Hooker is all good. Hooker had a rather yucky loss to Edson Barboza in which Hooker's toughness and heart was on full display, as Hooker was lit up for two and a half rounds. That was difficult to watch and after some easier wins over James Vick and Al Iaquinta, Hooker had a five-round banger against Paul Felder and now another five-rounder vs Poirier.
All of that adds up and having seen Hooker stand in the pocket, accepting all sorts of damage from some of the hardest hitters in the world isn't ideal. There is a reason Hooker is jacking up memorable fights and that will catch up with Hooker at some point, although considering how hearty Hooker is in the octagon, I doubt this will be a factor any time soon.
Unfortunately for Hooker, after starting the fight strongly with punching combinations that were sharp and accurate along with hefty kicks to Poirier's left calf, as the third round flowed on there was a minor gap in quality that emerged between the two fighters. As the fight went deeper and deeper, Poirier looked more comfortable and he not only delivered heavier shots and plenty of them, Poirier wasn't stressed by Hooker's takedowns. Poirier flipped the scenario to maintain damage on Hooker while the kiwi appeared to have control via a takedown then being on top of Poirier.
I'd put this down to experience. Poirier is a major factor at the top of the lightweight division, while Hooker recently entered this top-tier after his win over Felder. There's been some stuff floating around of Poirier using similar moves on Hooker to what Khabib Nurmagomedov used on Poirier and merely competing against Khabib is going to offer valuable experience, let alone using similar grappling techniques. Hence as Hooker churned out more takedowns later in the fight, Poirier handled them all reasonably well.
Hooker's takedowns offer a splash of funk to his game, especially after a takedown late in the fifth round vs Felder may have given Hooker the win in a close fight. There is a trend present here though; when Hooker's striking isn't quite as effective due to him taking damage and fatique, then he busts out a takedown attempt. These takedowns feel like desperation and being as fatigued as Hooker was, those takedown attempts vs Poirier didn't offer much assistance.
Neither did standing in the pocket with Poirier.
Hooker has this weird zombie mode that was evident in the loss to Barboza, less so vs Felder, where Hooker ambles forward with little intention or movement. That's due to him taking so much damage and it enables Hooker to stay in the fight, yet I reckon this also has Hooker slowly creeping away from what was working and any game plan.
Hooker started the fight with aggressive kicks, landing 9/9 and 7/7 in rounds one and two. That's 16 kicks, the majority of which were like a bat swung at Poirier's calf muscle and this kept Poirier at some distance - distance where Hooker could deliver punches and other strikes packaged with these kicks. Combine that with Hooker moving sideways, not really backing up in a straight line and instead exiting range by moving left or right and Hooker's first two rounds were lovely.
Then everything change and there was less movement, less kicks and far more of Hooker taking a stand and bang approach. Obviously, throughout those first two rounds Poirier is sussing things out himself and I don't doubt that Poirier made subtle changes to take control of the fight; Poirier didn't appear to to one thing to stop the kicks or one thing to limit Hooker's combinations, he seemed to change the fight generally with whatever tinkering was done by him and his coaches.
There has been some discussion about the smaller octagon at the UFC Apex facility which is notably smaller than octagons the UFC uses for their usual fight cards. I reckon this may hav been a minor factor as a smaller octagon aligns better for Poirier's style and Hooker's journey to Las Vegas for this fight may have limited his time with a different octagon size. All of which is minor and Hooker showed in those first two rounds that he was still slick at what he does best (precision, varied striking).
The better fighter won and that's all good for Hooker. Consider this a haere mai to the top-tier of the lightweight division and I'm eager to see improvements from Hooker as he gains experience against the best.
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Peace and love.