Michael Chandler Says Dan Hooker is Very Respected Among UFC Fighters

Published 01/19/2021, 6:48 AM EST

Michael Chandler made his name as lightweight at Bellator. During his stint with Scott Coker’s promotion, Chandler was a multiple-time champion and defended his belt frequently. However, after his contract expired, ‘Iron’ sought new challenges in his MMA career and signed with the premier MMA organization in the world to test himself against the best of the best.

Though he did cut weight leading up to UFC 254, he did not get to compete at the event as both Khabib and Justin made the walk to the octagon. Since then, both MMA fans, and Michael Chandler himself have been waiting for his debut in the UFC. He gets to prove himself and introduce UFC fans to who Michael Chandler this Saturday.

Read: Conor McGregor fight inevitable- Michael Chandler ready for his biggest challenge at UFC

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Michael Chandler assesses his first opponent in the UFC.

In a recent interview with SCMP MMA, Andrew Whitelaw asked Michael Chandler what he made of his opponent, Dan Hooker.

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He said, “These are the kind of fights you want you know, I didn’t come over to the UFC and sign with the promotion to tip-toe around. I wanted to be thrown into that upper echelon mix right away. Obviously, there was a bunch of names being thrown around in that top 5, and Dan Hooker’s name was always one of them…. All we do know is it’s the most exciting division in the UFC right now, and the division that has the most intrigue around it.”

‘Iron’ continued, “As far as Dan Hooker himself, as you alluded to, he’s an awesome competitor. He’s a tough guy. He can take damage, he can dish it out. And he’s tough in every single aspect of the sport you know…. He’s a champion in every sense of the word. He’s got a lot of respect amongst our peers as well, he’s a fighter’s fighter.”

Michael Chandler takes on one of the toughest fighters at lightweight in his UFC debut. Although Hooker is coming into the fight on the back of a loss, the fighter’s fighter can never be counted out, as he pushed Dustin Poirier to the limit.

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Chandler on the other hand is coming into the fight on the back of two first-round KOs. Going into the fight, he will have a serious deficit to ‘The Hangman’ in both height and reach. Hence, it will be interesting to see how ‘Iron’ Chandler will handle that in his first fight inside an octagon.

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Kevin Binoy is an MMA author at EssentiallySports. He earned a Bachelor's degree from Fergusson College and has been covering sports professionally for over two years. Besides working with the MMA writing team, Kevin is a core member of the organization's web stories team and is responsible for delivering engaging MMA web stories.

Michael Chandler Says Dan Hooker is Very Respected Among UFC Fighters

Michael Chandler assesses his first opponent in the UFC.

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