Dan Hooker wasn\u2019t familiar with UFC Paris opponent Salahdine Parnasse\u2019s game prior to being booked into the card\u2019s main event with the French star.<\/p>\n
He quickly recognized Parnasse\u2019s talent. \u201cI see what all the fuss is about,\u201d Hooker (24-14) stated during this week\u2019s UFC Paris media day.<\/p>\n
Hooker is faced with a fighter in Parnasse who is making his debut on a big stage, with lots of hype. The Frenchman is a former KSW double-champ, and big things are expected of him. Admitting that he\u2019s faced good competition in the past, \u201cThe Hangman\u201d suggested the biggest factor in the fight might be timing. Primarily his own.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just feel like right now, the timing for me, is right now I\u2019m very motivated, I\u2019m very locked in, and I\u2019m in a very good place,\u201d stated Hooker. \u201cI feel like had I been fighting Salahdine the way that I prepared for the BSD [Benoit Saint-Denis] fight, he\u2019s beating me ten times out of ten. But tonight, or when we fight in a couple of days, this is the best condition I\u2019ve ever been in in my life. So I\u2019m excited to go out there and perform.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hooker acknowledged that had Parnasse met him in the past couple of years, \u201cI feel like he could potentially get his hand raised. But I feel like the condition, and the mind set, and the focus that I have right now, it\u2019s not going to be his night.\u201d<\/p>\n
New Zealand\u2019s Hooker has called the UFC Paris main event a \u201ccrossroads fight,\u201d and it\u2019s worth noting that he enters it having lost two straight. A third consecutive loss could drop him from the rankings.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a serious fight to get things back on track,\u201d Hooker admitted this week. \u201cI love doing this, I love to compete here in the UFC, I love to fight, and I want to fight against the best guys. And do to do that, you have to win fights. You have to win fights.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t consistently lose fights, or they tell you to take off them gloves and wrap these things up. So I need to silence a lot people, I need to answer a lot of questions, I need to go out there, perform at the level that everyone expects of me, and we just right the ship. We right the ship, and we get things back on track.\u201d<\/p>\n
Watch the full UFC Paris media day appearance by Dan Hooker above.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dan Hooker wasn\u2019t familiar with UFC Paris opponent Salahdine Parnasse\u2019s game prior to being booked into the card\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":74131,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[12038,12050,12047,12053,12039,12051,12043,12041,12042,12036,12049,12048,30,12046,12040,12052,12044,12037,12045],"class_list":["post-74130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-paris","tag-bellator","tag-conor-mcgregor","tag-fighting","tag-gsp","tag-invicta","tag-jon-jones","tag-lfa","tag-martial-arts","tag-mixed-martial-arts","tag-mma","tag-one-championship","tag-one-fc","tag-paris","tag-pfl","tag-rizin","tag-ronda-rousey","tag-titan-fc","tag-ufc","tag-wsof"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74130\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}