Dan Hooker isn’t in the business of turning down fights even if he’s never heard of the opponent being offered to him.
After informing the UFC that he was ready to get back in action as early as September, he got a call asking if he’d like to welcome highly touted prospect Salahdine Parnasse to the octagon. Parnasse is a former two-division champion out of KSW and dazzled under his biggest spotlight to date when he knocked out Kenneth Cross on the main card for the Ronda Rousey vs. Gina Carano card back in May.
But truth be told, when the UFC asked Hooker about fighting him, he had no problem saying yes while simultaneously admitting he had never heard of Parnasse before that moment.
“I never heard of him,” Hooker told MMA Fighting. “But since that, you find out he’s quite a big name on the European circuit. I’m obviously aware of KSW, that’s a huge show out there in Europe. They’re selling out stadiums. I had no idea who he was.
“My manager told me how much money they were offering me to fight him, and they must think this kid’s pretty hot.”
It didn’t take Hooker long to understand the narrative with this fight because Parnasse is a big free-agent signing for the UFC and his first fight is headlining the promotion’s return to Paris where he’s a massive local star.
None of that offended the veteran lightweight because Hooker knows he’s always game for a big fight, especially when the UFC is willing to pay him as much as he’s about to earn on Saturday night.
“When you’re offered double what you would have got for Justin Gaethje — let’s say I was going to fight Justin Gaethje for half this amount,” Hooker revealed. “You’ve got to pay to play. You want a superstar, I’m the only one dumb enough to fight the kid.
“No one else plays the game like I play the game. I play on high volatility. I play it on high risk. At the end of the day, I’m a prizefighter. I’m here for the biggest prize and this is the biggest prize that is being offered in the world. I’ll be there with bells on.”
Hooker enters the fight off two straight losses to Arman Tsarukayn and Benoit Saint Denis, and while both of those opponents are ranked in the top 10, it doesn’t make the sting of defeat any easier.
Before he took any new fights, Hooker first had to concede what went wrong in both of those losses, and he had to rectify that problem before booking his return to action.
“After a couple of tough losses, you have to be real honest with yourself about what has been going wrong and where you’re mucking up,” Hooker said. “Those kinds of things were identified. When I didn’t have a fight locked in, I wasn’t putting the hours in the gym that I had throughout the past decade before that. So that’s what we did.”
Hooker started working with a new strength and conditioning coach, and he also had to be brutally honest with his other coaches when admitting that he was slacking off between fights.
That was a hard pill to swallow, but Hooker knows now that he had to make those necessary changes if he wanted to get back in the win column again.
“I’ve been on an all new strength and conditioning program at City Kickboxing and just grinding out,” Hooker said. “When I took a fight, I believe in that amount of time I would have been offered something by the UFC, but you can’t really sit down with your coaches and say I’ve just been training in fight camps and when the lights and cameras haven’t been on, I haven’t been putting in the work and then just jump straight back into another camp.
“So yeah, there have been no lights and cameras. I’ve just been running hills and sprinting tracks and lifting weights so when I let the UFC know I was ready to go in September, I was fit and ready and a good physical place to take a matchup.”
Hooker knows he’s stepping into enemy territory for his fight against Parnasse on Saturday but he actually relishes the chance to play spoiler.
After fighting close to home a number of times during his career, Hooker realized he much prefers being the away team in these situations. At UFC Paris, Hooker can’t wait to hear the roar of the crowd when Parnasse walks out and then the subsequent silence from those in attendance after watching their hometown favorite get demolished in his debut.
“That’s so much fun!” Hooker said. “Thinking about that moment gives me a warm feeling in my heart. Everyone is spending their hard-earned money for a ticket, and I’m just going to ruining it. I’m going to spoil the party. This kid’s out here to prove he belongs in the top 10, prove he’s in title contention, and he’s going to make a run for the belt and this will be the last time you ever heard of the kid.
“At the end of the day, he doesn’t get past me. This is going to be the first and last time this kid headlines a UFC event.”
