Lockdowns and training bubbles: Dan Hooker describes unique preparation for UFC on ESPN 12

It’s been a testing few months for Dan Hooker, who wasn’t 100 percent sure if he’d make it to his next fight.

Hooker (20-8 MMA, 10-4 UFC) was tentatively scheduled to face Dustin Poirier on the UFC’s June 27 main event, but whether or not Hooker could make it to the fight was out of his hands.

New Zealand was under a Level 4 lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic, making it difficult for Hooker to prepare for his upcoming fight.

With his training base at City Kickboxing in Auckland shut down for the majority of that period, Hooker did everything he could to stay in shape, training as if his fight was a certainty. He was able to access his gym toward the end of his camp, where at one point, fighters were divided into bubbles of ten to ensure safety in social distancing.

“There’s two sides to it,” Hooker told MMA Junkie. “So there’s like the reality of the situation and then my mentality towards the situation and they are two very different things. The reality of the situation was all up in the air. Visas weren’t getting granted – under Level 4 lockdown, the visa office was closed. You couldn’t even leave your home and go into the city, that would have been breaking the Level 4 lockdown rules. I couldn’t interact with anyone besides my wife and my child. It was pretty restrictive over here, so it was all up in the air.

“It really looked like nothing was going to happen, but my mentality towards the whole situation was, ‘It’s gonna happen, the fight’s gonna happen.’ This is not a sport where you can have one foot in the door, one foot out the door. That’s the way you get yourself hurt real bad. So I was fully committed to this fight and fully committed to training.”

Despite the uncertainty, things worked out for Hooker, who recently obtained his visa and will be traveling to Las Vegas Tuesday to face Poirier this Saturday in the UFC on ESPN 12 headliner. The Kiwi said his positive mindset was crucial to keeping his preparations on track as he gets set to step into the octagon for the biggest fight of his career.

“My mentality towards the situation, it was quite difficult to stay on track and very mentally testing, so I’m glad that I did, though,” he said. “Things worked out perfectly for me because I stayed focused throughout the whole lockdown and I stayed focused on Dustin Poirier and I stayed focused on being in the best shape possible to get this fight across the line so I didn’t miss out on the opportunity.”