So to start off with, I came across a lot of criticism and quite frankly, unnecessary hate. Now I know what you're thinking: "But it's my opinion" and yes, it is and that's fine! But allow some rational thinking perhaps.
So we all seen Chase Hooper's performance on Saturday, if you didn't then give it a quick look. A lot of Twitter users were saying he isn't a good fighter, he isn't a UFC fighter (where's your contract is my thought process each time I read these) but he's also quite young into his career.
When I first came across Chase it was whenever he did the mock interview with Jorge Masvidal pretending to be Ben Askren's kid, which actually fooled me surprisingly enough.
Hooper's record in UFC stands at 3-3 (not counting his victory on the Contenders Series), to some people, more so the professional fighters can be a pretty questionable record. He's a BJJ blackbelt, his ground game is high calibre. But his striking, well it's not exactly where it should be unfortunately. Which was proved on Saturday by Steve Garcia, utter dominance and overall great performance by Garcia if you ask me.
I don't think it's fair for him to be released (he hasn't but hypothetically) just over that fight, but there should defiantly be a discussion where he has to improve his striking for the next fight, the capability for him to be a star is there and UFC could use his personality for it.
Like Dana White said after UFC 250 back in 2020: "You can't get your A** destroyed for three rounds and pull off a slick submission at the end of the third round." Is Dana wrong? Well, no. I guess not. Was he being fair? Maybe.
The aim of the fight game is to win the fight, but getting a smashing session because you focus heavy on grappling will eventually catch up to you, especially being so young you might find CTE catching up on you very quick. I think giving Chase more time to get his overall game tightened up, hone the skills he's missing and get him back in there is more than a fair shout. One embarrassing loss can't determine the rest of the career. Remember when people claimed Jose Aldo shouldn't keep fighting and he should be released after the 13 second knockout? Me too, blasphemy.
Agree of disagree? I think a better boxing/kickboxing approach or striking based gym would be the ideal scenario for Chase going forward (See Khalil Rountree after training in Thailand) and judge from there.
And again, yours truly. L
Top comments (3)
I think with stuff like this, the market always decides. The UFC is a numbers game, if the market likes him, he stays, if not, he goes - defo nothing personal there IMO, he seems like a great kid and has some charisma and charm to go along with his fighting skills.
I think he definitely needs to work on those skills. Would you compare him to Ryan Hall?
Maybe similar stylistic wise. Great grappling of course and lesser standup, but I would say Hall is the better of the two