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UFC has been putting on great shows this year even as other sports struggle to maintain its standards since the COVID-19 pandemic. While other sports have suffered from playing in big empty arenas, UFC has been putting on event after event with not much discrepancy in quality. The UFC has also been lucky as they have had arguably four fights this year which could contend for the fight of the year mantle.
Weili Zhang and Joanna Jędrzejczyk; Tony Ferguson and Justin Gathje; Josh Emmett and Shane Burgos; and now Dustin Poirier and Dan Hooker.
Amongst those four, three have come in the post-COVID-19 era which makes the UFC pretty special. The smaller octagon at the Apex helps in this regard which is why Stipe Miocic seemed a little hesitant about fighting against Cormier at Las Vegas.
Featherweight Josh Emmett, who had a FOTY candidate last week at the Apex couldn't help but suggest there's something different about the water over there.
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Dustin Poirier and Dan Hooker would probably agree with that statement after lighting up the social media with their antics inside the octagon.
Bleacher Report's tweet about this fight seemed to capture the mood of the fans perfectly.
The fight had everything but knockdowns as Hooker started landing power punches in the first couple of rounds.
The New Zealander, a teammate of middleweight champion Israel Adesanya also worked Poirier with calf kicks as he cruised into control in the first two.
Poirier is no slouch though and his toughness made the difference against a slick striker possessing good footwork. He has gone into the deep waters before and has faced names like Max Holloway, Eddie Alvarez, Justin Gathje, and of course Khabib Nurmagomedov himself.
What made the main event so exciting was the striking accuracy on display by both fighters. Poirier landed 72% of his 289 total strikes while Hooker was successful with 64.3% of his total strikes.
As the fight went on, Dustin's experience of eight main events in the UFC paid off as Hooker started fading away. He would go on to outland his opponent by 57 strikes in the last three which made the difference in the judge's card, as they gave the "Diamond" a unanimous decision.
Poirier's teammate Jorge Masvidal summed it up best on twitter, anointing the fight as probably a fight of the year material.
Many criticised Dana White when he pushed for UFC to continue despite much pushback due to the pandemic. His intuituion to keep the train on the rails meant that UFC had a huge head start when compared to other sports.
UFC also stumbled upon gold as the Apex arena located near their headquarters was finished just in time before the pandemic. Fighting is also intriguing with or without fans which cannot be replicated by other sports.
The display of heart and violence can always be appreciated by most people without much care about the atmosphere. That is why Dana and the UFC should be applaused for taking the decision they did to keep hosting events during such unprecedented times.
