Dan Hooker

“You can look at mixed martial arts and you can look at the way the teams and the best gyms in the world approach it. That's something that's constantly in evolution, that's constantly in motion.”

“I am good everywhere; I can pick and choose the tools on the day, or even adjust during the fight.”

“I want to fight title contenders. That's what I'm here for, that's what gets me out of bed in the morning is trying to be the best.”

“I'm not that easy to rile up.”

“I feel like pressuring me, taking a shot, giving it, taking a shot, giving a shot is just not the way to best approach it.”

“I quit my job when I got a contract with Legend FC paying me $1000 to fight. Before that, I was 3-3 as a professional, coming off a loss and struggling for motivation. I took a week or two away from the sport and went crazy, I missed it that much. It was then and there, regardless of success or failure, I decided this was what I wanted to do.”

“There's always a balance to it, three times I've fought before in my home town, there is a different amount of pressure to it, when you're the villain, there's no pressure, everyone wants to see you lose.”

“I look at Gaethje, I look at Poirier, I look at Ferguson and I look at Khabib. I watch their fights, I see their skill, I respect their skill entirely. But I can see ways around it and I can see ways that I get it done against those guys.”

“Everyone knows that getting punched in the head is not good for your health, so you're trying to minimise that risk as much as possible in a fight and in the gym, but it's something that we've been mitigating the risks of for a very long time.”

“It's a very natural thing for me to just get in there and fight... I don't have to motivate myself for a fist-fight - that's just something I enjoy doing.”

“After every fight, win or lose, you need to get back in the gym and stay humble. Get better, take your wins, take your losses, and learn those lessons and get better.”

“Long before the UFC, I was a fan of Mark Hunt. To me, he was a big star before he stepped foot inside the Octagon.”

“Fight week you're going to eat the same thing, that's a standard thing regardless of weight.”

“Just being a fun guy is not what I want to be known for.”

“I'm not trying to say I'm the smartest fighter, but I'm saying that, in this sport, you have to aim for perfection.”

“I'm closer to middleweight than I am to featherweight.”

“To worry about a maybe in the sport of maybes is a difficult thing. It's kind of distracting and sidetracking.”

“That's the real motivating factor to go down to featherweight, is that I didn't want to tread water at lightweight. You want to be a world champion. That's your goal, so you want to get there as quickly as you possibly can.”

“The day you stop evolving in this sport is a very bad day.”

“You want to fight people that get you excited.”