Chase Hooper vs Steve Garcia added to UFC Fight Night 213
UFC Fight Night 213 is quickly approaching, going down on October 29, 2022, live from the UFC Apex in Enterprise, Nevada. The event is to be headlined by a pair of featherweight contenders in no. 5 ranked Calvin Kattar and no. 6 ranked Arnold Allen.
Another exciting clash slated to go down at this event also comes in the featherweight division, this one between Chase Hooper (11-2-1) and Steve Garcia (12-5).
Everyone gets excited when a Chase Hooper fight is announced, and for a good reason.
Following a successful amateur tenure that saw him go 5-0 with five first round finishes (1 knockout, 4 submission), laying claim to a championship in the process, he’d turn professional in October of 2017 exactly one year and one week out from his amateur debut.
Hooper would make his way to the UFC in late 2019 after an 8-0-1 start to his professional career that also saw him lay claim to two different titles. He’d TKO 27-4 kickboxer Daniel Teymur late in round one of his promotional debuts after locking up a mounted triangle choke.
This was an incredibly entertaining clash, and if you haven’t seen it, we strongly suggest you go back and give it a watch. It’s perhaps his most exciting fight to date.
Hooper was just 20 years old at this time, making the performance all that more impressive.
However, he’d lose his next bout to longtime UFC staple Alex Caceres (UD), before rebounding with a third-round submission (heel hook) victory over Peter Barrett. He was getting beat up in this fight, much like his UFC debut, and much like his fight with Caceres, but he pulled the win out of nowhere late in the fight with quite a rare submission.
Next, he’d lose another unanimous decision, this one to 27-fight veteran Steven Peterson who was coming off a KO (spinning back fist) win in his most recent outing.
Many fans were quickly becoming worried for Hooper, considering he takes an absurd amount of damage in merely every fight he’s in. He’s tough as they come though, he never gets discouraged, and he’s still incredibly young.
Hooper TKO’d Felipe Colares in round three of his most recent outing back in May of this year, a fight he absolutely dominated from start to finish. He’d taken nearly a year off between his fight with Peterson and Colares, and it showed.
Hooper looked much stronger, controlling the entirety of this fight, handily outgrappling the BJJ & Judo black belt en route to the late stoppage victory. And, having just turned 23 years of age last month, Hooper already boasts a black belt in BJJ himself.
30-year-old Steve Garcia comes into the bout with a record of 12-5, having gone 1-2 thus far inside the octagon. But his lone win comes via TKO over a very talented striker in Charlie Ontiveros.
Who comes out on top in this epic featherweight match up going down at UFC Fight Night 213?
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