Dan Hooker’s comeback at UFC Qatar this past weekend was not an easy one. After over a year of inactivity and another cycle of injuries, ‘The Hangman’ found himself in a very demanding main-event situation with Arman Tsarukyan and got completely overpowered. Tsarukyan went through the exchanges, kicked Hooker’s legs, and later in the second round, caught him in an arm-triangle choke, which made Hooker tap out. Nevertheless, Hooker was still laughing, groggy, self-ironic, and very much himself, the guy who would chase after any fight even if it broke his bones. To clarify, he had already aborted his last fight against Justin Gaethje at UFC 313 in March as a result of a hand injury.

The irony is crazy. Early this year, in January, it was Tsarukyan who missed a chance to fight Islam Makhachev due to a back injury, and the UFC put Renato Moicano, who had just a few days to prepare. Moicano was quickly finished by Islam Makhachev’s short-grip D’Arce choke in the first round, the submission that practically secured Islam’s place among the lightweight kings. But now that Makhachev has moved up and Ilia Topuria is the new king, Tsarukyan is the No.1 contender, and Dan Hooker and Moicano have this poetic bond of being defeated by top-level grapplers. However, instead of crying over their common misfortune, they are calling each other out and sharing laughs on social media.

Dan Hooker’s self-roast sparks a hilarious rivalry

Hooker did not just lose and vanish; rather, he entered the comedy mode directly. In classic Hangman fashion, he reversed the situation and challenged Renato Moicano with one of the most chaotically sincere statements a UFC fighter has ever made. “Moicano, you and him have been going back and forth for ages. He called you, famously, a turtle in a tree — all that sh-t. So I believe you’ll have some fun with it,” the host of ‘The Mac Life‘ stated.

Hooker didn’t miss a beat. “It’s a good fight. We both suck, you know. No, we both got cooked, you know. We both suck. We both got cooked. Islam cooked him, Arman cooked me. But I love that—We’re both sh-t but he’s sh-t,” the Kiwi said while bursting out laughing. Moicano instantly reposted the clip and captioned it with a tsunami of laughing emojis.

The fight between these two would be a low-key but great show. Hooker comes with his long-range kickboxing, high knees, and tough durability. On the contrary, Moicano is a pressure grappler who loves to scramble and takes advantage of the opponent’s mistakes by converting them into submissions. So if you mix these two together in the octagon, you will have a mess, Hooker trying to shoot from the outside, Moicano pulling things into the mud. And the 35-year-old, for one, rather wallowing in his self-pity, has taken the loss in his usual jovial spirit.

Dan Hooker keeps it real after Arman Tsarukyan loss

UFC Qatar loss left Dan Hooker with bruises, but it did not change his character—he remains the same sharp-tongued, honest man who is still allergic to excuses. “We had fun,” Hooker said during the same interview, as if it were nothing more than another whirlwind episode in a career full of them. He then pointed out again the reason he accepted the fight in the first place: “No one else wanted to fight that guy. No one else wanted to step up…You have a number one contender that nobody wants to fight. You have a champ that does not want to fight. So, we cannot just sit around.”

Then came the most Hangman answer ever, the part that reveals why fans love him unconditionally, even when he fails. “Well, you have to face a cold hard truth — you’re probably never going to get your hands on a title. But I am going to stick around for as long as I can and ruin people’s hopes and dreams. Because if I cannot have good things, nobody can. Cheers…Jesus.” This is raw, self-aware, and ridiculously dark classic Dan Hooker.

And even after a hard night against Tsarukyan and fighting with a broken nose, he still remains the same chaotic factor in the lightweight division, the one who keeps the weight class true by merely being there. The Hangman is not finished. He is merely sharpening the axe once again after a tumble.