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Dan Hooker Scorches Earth in Bitter Paddy Pimblett Feud
One of the UFC‘s coldest rivalries has exploded with emotion in recent weeks as Dan Hooker refuses to back down when it comes to a war of words with popular prizefighter Paddy Pimblett.
Though the lightweight fighters have been on different trajectories to get to this point in their respective combat sport careers, they occupy similar spots in the official UFC rankings at 155 pounds with Hooker in 6th spot, behind Pimblett in 5th.
Pimblett returns to the Octagon on the 24th of January against Justin Gaethje and so victory in that match would elevate his standing even further, having recently beaten Tony Ferguson, King Green, and Michael Chandler with ease. Hooker, meanwhile, needs to kickstart his career again after coming unstuck to Arman Tsarukyan, last year, after defeating Mateusz Gamrot, Jalin Turner, and Claudio Puelles since 2022.
Despite the different ways in which they’re forging their careers, they could, perhaps, be destined to collide — particularly, as UFC boss Dana White often says, the best way to settle these differences is often by doing what they do best… by fighting.
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It all seemingly started when Pimblett appeared to denigrate Hooker’s grappling skills when comparing his veteran status to that of Gaethje. Hooker did not take long to respond, and accused him of being friendly to his face, but “not a very good mate” from a keyboard — and then referenced the recent passing of Ricky Hatton.
For Pimblett, there was no need to reference his dead friend. “It was a bit weird,” he told Fox Sports Australia.
All is fair in love and war, though, according to Hooker.
“That’s all you can say about that, f*** around and find out. You want to take it there? There’s s*** you don’t talk about as fighters. He can say whatever he wanted, he tried to get a reaction, he f****** got one. You go low, I go lower.”
He added: “You want to say some horrible s*** like that, yeah, I’m going to think of the most horrible s*** I can possibly [say] and I’m going to bring that s*** up, too.
“He genuinely [annoyed] me. He genuinely got under my skin and he got a reaction. He wanted to p*** me off, he p***** me off. I wanted to say something so the feeling’s mutual. I want to kick your head in, the next time I see you — now you want to kick my head in back. Now the feeling is mutual. I’ve got no intention of making up, there’s no coming back from that.”
Hooker has his own comeback fight booked before he can get his hands on Pimblett as he fights Benoit Saint-Denis first, on the 31st of January in the co-main event of UFC 325 — the week after Pimblett’s bout with Gaethje.
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