Dan Hooker has no patience for critics of his teammate Israel Adesanya.
At UFC 276, Adesanya won a unanimous decision against Jared Cannonier to defend his title as middleweight. Adesanya had hyped the fight up before the event, so his poor performance at the UFC 276 attracted criticism from the fans. They believed Adesanya was just coasting. Hooker claims that this is pure asinine.
“It’s just dumb. [Laughs]. It’s just not how the sport works,” Hooker told Ariel Helwani on The MMA Hour. Hooker said, “You are the champion. The other guy wants to win the title. You’re winning the fight. It’s not up to you. You don’t have to promote the fight. You want the title. It’s clear that you are winning. It’s not time to brawl when you’re clearly winning. If the guy is taking risks, and it becomes very close, Israel will have to fight.
Hooker is not the only City Kickboxing fighter to come to Adesanya’s defense. Featherweight champion and No. 1 pound-for-pound fighter in the sport, Alexander Volkanovski also defended his teammate with much the same reasoning: that it’s incumbent upon the challenger to make something happen. Hooker obviously agrees, and points to Kamaru Usman’s loss to Leon Edwards as proof of what they’re saying.
” These guys need to force him to fight. But to be honest, he shouldn’t — just look at what happened to Usman last weekend! A single mistake in this game and now you’re just turned into a meme in one moment,” Hooker said. Hooker said, “He was the greatest pound-for-pound fighter in the world and became a meme within a matter of seconds. That’s how quickly this cruel game can change. It’s the same for Israel. He may make one, but you don’t believe he should. He shouldn’t take that risk. His opponents must take that risk.
” If your greatest criticism is as a world champion that you get too many hits, [laughs], until you lose title you won’t realize how ridiculous that sound until you make a stupid risk and loose the title. They sound dumb when they say it.”
Adesanya will have a chance to put the criticism surrounding him to bed when puts his middleweight title on the line against former kickboxing rival Alex Pereira in the main event of UFC 281 on Nov. 12 at Madison Square Garden.
