{"id":436131,"date":"2026-01-27T09:09:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T09:09:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/436131\/"},"modified":"2026-01-27T09:09:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T09:09:12","slug":"dan-hooker-says-he-suffered-serious-injury-in-arman-tsarukyan-headbutt-that-led-to-latest-title-shot-snub","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/436131\/","title":{"rendered":"Dan Hooker says he suffered serious injury in Arman Tsarukyan headbutt that led to latest title shot snub"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>UFC lightweight contender Dan Hooker suffered a serious injury from Arman Tsarukyan\u2019s headbutt at the UFC Qatar weigh-in.<\/p>\n<p>Top UFC lightweight contender Arman Tsarukyan wasn\u2019t a part of this past weekend\u2019s festivities at UFC 324, but he remains a fixture of the division\u2019s title picture.<\/p>\n<p>Tsarukyan watched cageside as Justin Gaethje reclaimed the UFC interim lightweight title by outpointing Paddy Pimblett at UFC 324 last Saturday. Gaethje, 38, became the oldest UFC lightweight to win a belt in the promotion\u2019s illustrious history, handing Pimblett his first UFC defeat.<\/p>\n<p>Many fans and pundits believed Tsarukyan deserved a shot at the interim lightweight belt last Saturday over Pimblett. Tsarukyan most recently submitted Dan Hooker <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bjpenn.com\/mma-news\/ufc\/dan-hooker-speaks-out-after-ufc-qatar-loss-to-arman-tsarukyan\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">at UFC Qatar<\/a> last year to extend his ongoing win streak.<\/p>\n<p>Just hours before Tsarukyan defeated Hooker, the two lightweights were involved in a pre-fight scuffle at the ceremonial weigh-in. Tsarukyan headbutted Hooker as they faced off on stage, leading to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bjpenn.com\/mma-news\/dana-white\/dana-white-headbutting-dan-hooker-led-arman-tsarukyan-title-shot-snub\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">UFC CEO Dana White snubbing<\/a> Tsarukyan from another title shot.<\/p>\n<p>But Tsarukyan\u2019s headbutt did serious damage not only to his own title hopes, but to Hooker\u2019s performance in their fight.<\/p>\n<p>Dan Hooker suffered broken nose in headbutt that led UFC to snub Arman Tsarukyan of title shot<\/p>\n<p>In a recent appearance on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/live\/-HmviMTIArA?si=MDHZWkFflU8odMy8\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">The Ariel Helwani Show<\/a>, Hooker revealed he suffered a broken nose thanks to Tsarukyan just hours before their fight.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen this c\u2014 f\u2014\u2014 headbutted me at the weigh-in and broke my f\u2014\u2014 nose, it pissed me right off. But it\u2019s like, you can\u2019t get emotional at that stage of the fight,\u201d Hooker said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cObviously, mate, I was fuming. I wanted that back, but you just have to brush it off, you have to put that in the back of your mind, but yeah, I was steaming, bro. That threw me off for sure. They scanned me after the fight, took me to the hospital, and said I had a fractured nose. It had nothing to do with the fight \u2013 I had to get medically cleared for this fight, but I just flat-out refused [LAUGHS].<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe broken nose didn\u2019t bother me [in the fight], not a physical thing, just more mental,\u201d Hooker continued. \u201cGetting a one-up on you before the fight\u2026but kudos to him, he got it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Hooker is set to return to the Octagon against knockout artist Benoit Saint-Denis this weekend at UFC 325.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UFC lightweight contender Dan Hooker suffered a serious injury from Arman Tsarukyan\u2019s headbutt at the UFC Qatar weigh-in.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":436132,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[15504,49,48,40592,641,9577,638,15502,82,640,153471,69307],"class_list":["post-436131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-arman-tsarukyan","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-dan-hooker","tag-fighting","tag-justin-gaethje","tag-mma","tag-paddy-pimblett","tag-sports","tag-ufc","tag-ufc-324","tag-ufc-qatar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436131","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=436131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436131\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/436132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=436131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=436131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=436131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}