Dan Hooker really had no problem with Paddy Pimblett, but when the UFC 324 headliner decided to invoke his mother’s name with a truly off-colored remark, he knew there was no coming back from that.
The whole ordeal started after Pimblett addressed Hooker’s grappling skills during an interview when he said “Dan Hooker couldn’t grapple a f*cking rapist off his ma.” While there’s about a million different ways to insult Hooker’s grappling, the veteran lightweight contender still can’t figure out why Pimblett decided to go that route with such a horrific comment involving his mother.
So in return, Hooker responded by name dropping Pimblett’s friend Ricky, who died by suicide, in a post on social media. Pimblett erupted at that comment, which is exactly what Hooker wanted.
“It’s just whatever the worst thing that I know 100 percent would have pissed him off,” Hooker told MMA Fighting about his response. “If his mom had one leg or f*ck knows, you know what I mean? It could have been f*cking anything. But yeah, he was under my skin. I wanted to get under his.”
Prior to this recent dustup, Hooker enjoyed trading barbs with Pimblett from time to time and he never felt like anything said stepped out of bounds. But Pimblett deciding to use a rape joke as the way to insult his grappling was just a bridge too far.
That’s why Hooker has no regrets about what he said in return, and he’s been stunned at the way Pimblett has reacted as if he wasn’t the one who started the whole mess in the first place.
“He’s always talked shit constantly,” Hooker said. “I think he’s funny. His funny little accent and then out of nowhere, he just says a f*cking out of pocket statement about something you do not talk about. Who in the history of combat sports has ever made a rape joke about someone’s mother? Then he just tries to play it off like he’s the victim and I popped off at him out of nowhere. No one’s ever made a rape joke about someone’s mother in the history of combat sports. He does it and then sweeps it under the rug and can’t believe why I’m so upset.
“You wanted a reaction, you wanted to get under my skin. You did it. You genuinely pissed me off and when you do that, I want to make sure that feeling is mutual. I’m not going to sit here and try to justify the whole situation. It’s just like he took it somewhere, he has to man up and understand you play stupid games, you win stupid prizes. F*ck around and find out. He f*cked around, and he found out.”
Whatever professional curiosity he had about potentially fighting Pimblett one day in the future has now turned personal and Hooker promises to settle the score one way or another.
In the leadup to his recent fight with Arman Tsarukyan at UFC Qatar, Hooker vowed to throw down with his opponent outside the cage is things got testy but even that wasn’t built around any real disdain between them.
That’s not the case with Pimblett because Hooker says now he’s actually coming after the Liverpool native whether it’s in the UFC octagon or not.
“Arman was f*cking business. This is not. It’s personal,” Hooker said. “He’s just a little f*cking wank. He’s always chiming away, we always talk shit but I figured we just both kind of speak our minds. Just one dumb f*cking statement he said. That to me is signed, sealed, delivered. This guy’s on the other side of the f*cking world to me. What are we going to sit around getting grumpy, fly to wherever he lives? That’s miles away.
“I see the headline and it’s like 60 scousers will jump you if you come to UFC 324. Brother, that’s a week before my fight in Australia. Don’t go around threatening me with places I have no intention of being. It’s like [saying] I better not see you down at Auckland Harbor Ridge tomorrow! You can’t threaten someone for somewhere they’re not going to be. And they stopped giving me tickets to the f*cking UFC years ago. There’s a reason!”
Pimblett claiming that Hooker would get jumped if he showed up at UFC 324 where he’s scheduled to face Justin Gaethje in the main event actually had “The Hangman” contemplating a trip halfway around the world just to see what might happen.
“That just made me want to go,” Hooker said. “I didn’t want to go. Don’t threaten me with a good time. That’s a stand your ground state. We’re on.”
With his own matchup booked against Benoit Saint Denis at UFC 325, Hooker isn’t spending too much time thinking about Pimblett right now but he knows that’s going to change after his fight.
In a perfect world, Pimblett loses on Saturday, and Hooker wins one week later, and then hopefully the UFC capitalizes on the growing feud between them.
“I hope Gaethje f*cking starches him,” Hooker said. “Just the striking differential to me is just night and day. He just fights real tall with his chin flying around in the air. After he gets clipped, and I get past [Benoit Saint Denis], I would love to f*ck him up.”
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