Dan Hooker is targeting a fight against a top 10-ranked UFC lightweight on whatever card Conor McGregor headlines.
Just before the ball drop for New Year's, McGregor posted a video claiming he'll be fighting Michael Chandler in a middleweight bout on June 29. UFC CEO Dana White clarified that Conor's next fight is not official, and that when the "Notorious" one is truly ready the UFC will be hard at work on his next bout.
Hooker will be waiting to hear the news as he'd like to be a part of that card.
During an interview with ENGAGE, Dan Hooker revealed that the opponent he'd like to share the Conor McGregor card with is none other than Beneil Dariush.
"Beneil, I'll fight Beneil June," Hooker said. "Whether that be McGregor's card International Fight Week, if he's just pulling everyone's chain as he usually does. I heard they're [UFC] coming back mid-year in Australia. That as well, it would be cool to fight close to home. So, Benny is ranked above me coming off a couple of losses, but let's go baby. He's come out and said, yeah, he wants to see if he still got it. Well, I can check, brother. I'll check for ya."
Hooker mentioning Dariush's comments about figuring out if he still has it stems from "Benny's" appearance on "Submission Radio" following his back-to-back losses against Charles Oliveira and Arman Tsarukyan. There, Dariush made it clear that if he's not aiming to compete for UFC gold, then he has no reason to move forward with pro MMA competition. He admitted, just as Hooker said, that he wanted to test himself to see if he can still go.
Dan Hooker figures to be one solid test.
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