Dana White ‘confident’ Dan Hooker vs. Nasrat Haqparast will happen at UFC 266
UFC president, Dana White believes Dan Hooker vs. Nasrat Haqparast will happen at UFC 266.
The lightweight scrap was only made just five weeks before the event and it immediately garnered the attention of the fight world. However, since then both Hooker and Haqparast have been dealing with visa issues which Hooker got his and will arrive in Vegas on Thursday evening. The German, meanwhile, is still awaiting his but the UFC boss is confident the fight will happen.
Dana White talks below
Dana White is "confident" Dan Hooker vs. Nasrat Haqparast will happen Saturday despite lingering visa issues.#UFC266 | Full video: https://t.co/Cvwq8mVInX pic.twitter.com/PUBBTZBG2k
— MMA Junkie (@MMAJunkie) September 22, 2021
“Trust me, I know. We’re working on it, we should be able to get this done. I’m hoping we can,” White said after the Contender Series. “You guys have no idea how much s**t we deal with visa and stuff, and we’ve got a really good team that saves our ass on a lot of shows. So we should be able to get this done. I’m confident we can.”
Dan Hooker (20-10) is the eighth-ranked lightweight and last fought back in January where he was knocked out by Micahel Chandler in the first round. Prior to that, he dropped a back-and-forth five-round decision to Dustin Poirier in one of the best fights of 2020. Hooker has been in the UFC since 2014 and holds notable wins over Paul Felder, Al Iaquinta, Gilbert Burns, Jim Miller, and James Vick among others. Before the setbacks, he was on a three-fight winning streak.
Nasrat Haqparast (13-3), meanwhile, is unranked but is on a two-fight winning streak. He’s coming off back-to-back decision victories over Rafa Garcia and Alex Munoz to return to the win column after being knocked out by Drew Dober at UFC 246. The 25-year-old is 5-2 in the UFC and his other wins over Joaquin Silva, Thibault Gouti, and Marc Diakese.
If Hooker vs. Haqprasat happens at UFC 266 it will happen on the prelims of the card, which is the first time Hooker is on the prelims in quite some time.
