{"id":172749,"date":"2025-12-07T23:28:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-07T23:28:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/172749\/"},"modified":"2025-12-07T23:28:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-07T23:28:08","slug":"ufc-325-dan-hooker-books-return-against-benoit-saint-denis-in-sydney-co-main-event","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/172749\/","title":{"rendered":"UFC 325: Dan Hooker books return against Benoit Saint Denis in Sydney co-main event"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s a quick turnaround for the Kiwi, who has been limited to just one bout since the start of September last year due to injury, after he was handed his first defeat in more than three years against Tsarukyan in Qatar.<\/p>\n

Saint Denis comes into the contest riding a three-fight winning streak with two submissions and a knockout \u2013 most recently taking American Beneil Dariush\u2019s place in the top 10 \u2013 and gets another chance to work his way up in the division.<\/p>\n

Saint Deni has been a force at lightweight, but the Frenchman has had his struggles against the division\u2019s elite with his two losses in the division coming against perennial US contender Dustin Poirier and current No 10-ranked Renato Moicano of Brazil.<\/p>\n

After an impressive knockout win in his UFC debut, Australian Rowston will take on American Cody Brundage, appearing alongside Tafa\u2019s bouts against another American, Billy Elekana, on the early prelims.<\/p>\n

China\u2019s Rongzhu will appear in the featured preliminary bout, looking to halt the momentum of surging Australian Quillan Salkilld.<\/p>\n

UFC 325, Qudos Bank Arena, Sydney, February 1, 2026<\/p>\n

Main card<\/p>\n

Main event: Alexander Volkanovski (c) v Diego Lopes (2) for the UFC featherweight championship<\/p>\n

Lightweight: Dan Hooker (6) v Benoit Saint Denis (8)<\/p>\n

Lightweight: Rafael Fiziev (9) v Mauricio Ruffy (14)<\/p>\n

Heavyweight: Tai Tuivasa (12) v Tallison Teixeira (15)<\/p>\n

Light heavyweight: Jimmy Crute v Dustin Jacoby<\/p>\n

Preliminary card<\/p>\n

Lightweight: Rongzhu v Quillan Salkilld<\/p>\n

Heavyweight: Serghei Spivac (7) v Ante Delija (9)<\/p>\n

Welterweight: Jonathan Micallef v Oban Elliott<\/p>\n

Featherweight: Kaan Ofli v Yizha<\/p>\n

Early prelims<\/p>\n

Light heavyweight: Junior Tafa v Billy Elekana<\/p>\n

Middleweight: Cam Rowston v Cody Brundage<\/p>\n

Middleweight: Jacob Malkoun v Torrez Finney<\/p>\n

Road To UFC final match-ups will also appear on the card, including New Zealand\u2019s Aaron Tau and Lawrence Lui. <\/p>\n

Christopher Reive<\/a> joined the Herald sports team in 2017, bringing the same versatility to his coverage as he does to his sports viewing habits.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s a quick turnaround for the Kiwi, who has been limited to just one bout since the start…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":172750,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[12467,9092,1863,111419,489,111421,13842,111420,8231,8455,22311,14568,78,111,139,69,1527,96219,213,10811,1734,4306],"class_list":["post-172749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-12467","tag-against","tag-back","tag-benoit","tag-books","tag-comain","tag-dan","tag-denis","tag-event","tag-getting","tag-hooker","tag-horse","tag-in","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-return","tag-saint","tag-sports","tag-straight","tag-sydney","tag-ufc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=172749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172749\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/172750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}