‘Slagging him off”: When Alex Volkanovski was mercilessly sledged by mate Dan Hooker
They’ll line up at UFC 325 in February, but the last time Alex Volkanovski fought in his hometown, Dan Hooker spent the entire fight brutally sledging him.
Alex Volkanovski just laughs when asked what he remembers about his last fight in Sydney, back in November 2017.
Still just a year into his UFC career at the time, Volkanovski went head-to-head with Kiwi debutant Shane Young, but it was another New Zealander who left as much of an impression.
“That’s just Dan Hooker, that’s how he is” Volkanovski laughs about his great mate and training partner Dan Hooker, who spent much of that fight mercilessly sledging Volkanovski.
“He just gives it to ya. And I’d expect nothing less.”
Eight years on and Hooker is set to fight in the co-main event of Volkanovski’s blockbuster featherweight world title defence against Diego Lopes at UFC 325 in Sydney in February.
But in 2017, Hooker was in the opposing corner, helping coach his City Kickboxing teammate Young against Volk.
And The Hangman did everything he could to throw Volkanovski off his game.
“I remember it,” Hooker laughs. “Shane had taken the fight on a week’s notice, and was down two rounds and his gas tank wasn’t there.
“Volk took him down in the third round, so, bro, what are you gonna do, keep screaming at your own fighter? We knew he wasn’t physically able to get up at that point.
“So we turned our attention to yelling at Volk instead.”
Does he remember what was said?
“Oh yeah, I was slagging him off!” he says. “I was going, ‘You’re in your hometown and you’re putting on a boring fight!’
“I was just trying to get in his head, because that was the only chance Shane had of getting up.”
A relative unknown at the time, Volkanovski was battling an excruciating back injury, and might have pulled out of the fight, but desperately needed the pay check.
And he wasn’t about to let Hooker’s sledging derail his fight.
“It’s funny, he was trying to make me scrap, knowing that I was going to win by wrestling and grappling,” Volkanovski tells Code Sports. “He knew Shane’s only chance was to get up and land a big shot, so was trying to get in my head.
“But I was like, ‘Nah, I ain’t falling for that’ and I held on even more.”
Volkanovski won the bout via unanimous and Hooker was one of the first to congratulate him afterwards.
They’ve since become even better mates, training together and travelling the world to fight.
“He sledged me, but he’d expect us to sledge him as well – that’s the type of guy he is,” Volkanovski said. “He’ll give it, but he knows how to take it as well.
“He’s just a hard man, a hard human being and he can’t be broken. It’s something you’ve gotta respect.”
Fourteen fights and two featherweight championship reigns later, Volkanovski returns to headline UFC 325 as one of the sport’s biggest stars and arguably the greatest mixed martial artist from Down Under.
There has been intense speculation his homecoming could double as a retirement fight, but the 37-year-old refutes those claims.
“No plans of retiring just yet, I’m not sure where that came from,” he says. “It’s what people are saying and are running with, but there are no plans of retiring just yet.”
While it might not be his last ever fight, it could very well be his last appearance in Sydney.
And after last fighting in his hometown while injured and nearly broke, he returns with his legacy set in stone, money in the bank, a sprawling farm near Wollongong, a massively popular ‘Cookin’ with Volk’ YouTube channel and the support of New South Wales Premier Chris Minns.
“I always believed I could be the UFC champion and be the best in the world, but all this other stuff…I had no idea that I’d be where I am today,” he says. “With the cooking stuff, and how I’m recognised. It’s just crazy.
“I’m just so comfortable with who I am and what I’m doing. It’s all paying off, inside and outside the Octagon.
“But there’s no way I thought I’d be where I am now.”
Originally published as ‘Slagging him off”: When Alex Volkanovski was mercilessly sledged by mate Dan Hooker
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