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New Zealand-born fighter Dan Hooker has spoken out about Colby Covington's claims that UFC lighterweight Dustin Poirier knocked out an amateur in training, before screaming in his face 'And New.'
Covington made the claim in an interview with Mike Bohn of MMA Junkie. The top-ranked welterweight showed Bohn a video of the supposed interaction, stating that-
“Dustin (Poirier) is not a nice, charitable guy. He is a piece of sh*t person — let me show you this video, Mike, so you can see it off-camera, I can’t show it on camera, look at this, look at this fight, this was at training. Wait, this is an amateur, by the way, no headgear, he was going training with him, watch. Watch what he says in his face, ‘And New’ — he’s rubbing it in the kid’s face after he drops him. What’s nice and honorable, and charitable about that?" (H/T Lowkick MMA).
Dan Hooker's thoughts on hard sparring at ATT
In an interview with Sportskeeda MMA's John Hyon Ko, Dan Hooker was asked about his thoughts on Poirier's actions and whether he believed Covington had violated an unwritten rule amongst fighters that what happens in the gym stays in the gym. 'The Hangman' said-
"Nah I feel like it's fair game...I don't know. There's no like set rule. It's not like we're in the mafia or anything... Different gyms have different cultures. I've been in some hard sparring gyms and traveled the world. Sparring is different no matter what place your in. Things do happen, guys do get knocked out in sparring. A lot of the time by accident, though sometimes I've seen it done maliciously."
Dan Hooker does note that Poirier's gym, American Top Team, has a history of hard sparring. He told Sportskeeda-
"ATT. Fighters talk. People would tell me about Hector Lombard, just running through guys and knocking out his training partners in the gym. That's like common knowledge that that sort of thing happens at ATT. It's no secret."
The difference between ATT and City Kickboxing
ATT is clearly a very different training environment when compared to Dan Hooker's gym, City Kickboxing. Hooker states that despite the gym having some of the greatest mixed martial artists in the world, there are very rarely any knockouts in training.
"Our culture at City Kickboxing is very different," said Dan Hooker. "Sparring is a little bit more playful. It's not hard at all. Like I can speak for one - Israel (Adesanya). Israel has a ton of knockouts in the UFC and kickboxing. I have never seen him knock anyone out in the gym."
Catch our full interview with Dan Hooker below:
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