UFC lightweight Chase Hooper admitted that he was considering walking away from MMA before he picked up a big win at UFC Oklahoma City.
Hooper entered his fight against Mitch Ramirez on a two-fight losing skid, with brutal knockout losses to Alexander Hernandez and Lance Gibson Jr. during his skid. He knew he needed to beat Ramirez to keep his job with the UFC, and he did just that with a first-round rear-naked choke submission win.
Had he lost the fight, though, Hooper admits he was considering leaving the sport.
Win Saves Chase Hooper’s UFC Career
Speaking to the UFC following the fight, Hooper admitted that beating Ramirez essentially saved his career, as he would have walked away had he lost.
“I told my wife, ‘I’m not losing three in a row. If I lose three fights in a row, I don’t deserve to be here. I need to figure something else out. It was very much a make-or-break moment for me. It’s so nice because it’s been over a year since I won my last fight. It was the Jim Miller fight back in April of last year. it’s been over a year since I’ve been able to feel this. It’s a drug. You crave it. It’s one of those things that was a make-or-break moment for me and I told my wife, ‘If I lose this next fight, I’m going to get a job, back to normal,’ that type of stuff. But we’re here and I’ll push those worries off. I still have the skill set. I still deserve to be here – and onto the next one,” Hooper said (via MMAjunkie.com).
Chase Hooper Credits Michael Chiesa For Winning
According to Hooper, he had trained with fellow Washington state native and former UFC fighter Michael Chiesa ahead of the Ramirez fight, and it helped him get back to what he does best, which is grapple, after choosing to try and stand his last few fights, which obviously did not work out very well for him.
“It was super validating to just know the thing that got me into the sport, the thing that got me here to the UFC, is what’s keeping me here. I had a really good talk with Michael Chiesa. I was on the card with him for his retirement fight. I went out to Spokane this camp and I just wanted to take a couple plays out of his book and see how he did it. He made an entire career out of being a grappler and (he had) tons of submission wins in his own right. I took a couple pages out of his playbook and obviously, it worked out,” Hooper said.
The win over Ramirez upped Hooper’s UFC record to 9-5 with seven finishes. While he won’t be getting a top-15-ranked opponent anytime soon, the win over Ramirez will at least guarantee his employment with the UFC for at least another couple of fights, something that was certainly not a guarantee had he lost.
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