\u201cThe Hangman\u201d was dealing with a seriously busted schnoz.<\/p>\n
New Zealand Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) fan favorite Dan Hooker returns to action this weekend (Sat., Jan. 31, 2026) when he faces fellow berserker Benoit Saint-Denis in the co-main event of UFC 325<\/a> inside Qudos Bank Arena in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a quick turnaround for Hooker, who was thoroughly dominated by<\/a> Arman Tsarukyan just two months ago at UFC Qatar<\/a>. Eager to wash away the bitter taste of that loss, Hooker jumped at the opportunity to compete again in what amounts to a near home game.<\/p>\n As it turns out, that fight may have been compromised before it even started.<\/p>\n Speaking with Ariel Helwani, Hooker revealed that Tsarukyan fractured his nose with a headbutt during the ceremonial weigh-ins<\/a> \u2014 an incident that left him furious and visibly affected heading into the bout.<\/p>\n \u201cI actually didn\u2019t process the loss until I woke up in bed this morning, mate,\u201d Hooker said. \u201cI kind of just kept compartmentalizing it. It\u2019s not something I really processed, and because I did get another fight so fast, you don\u2019t really get into what went wrong \u2014 and it was f\u2014king when this c\u2014t f\u2014king head-butted me at the weigh-in<\/a> and broke my f\u2014king nose, it pissed me off.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut you can\u2019t get emotional at that stage of the fight. I was fuming,\u201d Hooker added. \u201cI wanted that back, but you just have to brush it off, put that in the back of your mind. But I was steamed, bro. I was steamed. That threw me off, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n Hooker later learned the extent of the damage after the fight.<\/p>\n \u201cThey scanned me and took me to the hospital,\u201d Hooker explained. \u201cThey were like, \u2018You\u2019ve got a fractured nose.\u2019 I said, \u2018C\u2014t, that was the weigh-in.\u2019 That had nothing to do with the fight.\u201d<\/p>\n A fractured nose<\/a> typically requires six to eight weeks to fully heal, which would normally sideline most fighters. But Hooker made it clear that wasn\u2019t happening.<\/p>\n \u201cFor this fight, they were like, \u2018You\u2019ve got to be medically cleared for this fight,\u2019 and I just flat refused, brother,\u201d Hooker said. \u201cYou already let me have one fight with it, and now you\u2019re going to stop me from having another fight with it? That was from the weigh-in, brother.\u201d<\/p>\n Hooker ultimately brushed it off, admitting Tsarukyan \u201cgot him,\u201d while also noting the lack of proper oversight at the event.<\/p>\n With these details now public, it adds context to why UFC CEO Dana White was upset with Tsarukyan<\/a> and ultimately benched him from the interim title fight<\/a> that took place last weekend.<\/p>\n Still, a broken nose won\u2019t stop Hooker, who claims he\u2019s broken it \u201c20 to 30 times\u201d throughout his career. And with Saint-Denis standing across from him at UFC 325, another bloody, three-round war could be right around the corner.<\/p>\n For the rest of the UFC 325 fight card and Paramount+<\/a> lineup click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThe Hangman\u201d was dealing with a seriously busted schnoz. New Zealand Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) fan favorite Dan…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":297880,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,33601,638,82,702,3194],"class_list":["post-435520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fighting","tag-latest-ufc-mma-news","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc-news","tag-videos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=435520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435520\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/297880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=435520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=435520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=435520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}