Lightweights
#5 LW | Mateusz Gamrot (24-2, 7-2 UFC) vs. #11 LW | Dan Hooker (23-12, 13-8 UFC)UFC 305: Du Plessis vs. Adesanya Saturday at 10 ET on ESPN+. Order Now!
This is a well-matched fight, but it does seem like Gamrot is now tabbed to take the long road to contender status. Gamrot was a highly anticipated signing by the UFC in 2020 as a two-division champion in his native Poland, but his UFC debut suggested he might struggle to make the shift from regional titleholder to three-round UFC fighter. His fight with Guram Kutateladze was essentially even, with fellow newcomer Kutateladze earning the narrow decision victory. That seemingly killed all of Gamrot’s momentum, but “Gamer” rebounded surprisingly well. After a knockout win over Scott Holtzman, Gamrot’s relentless wrestling and scrambling led him to victories over Jeremy Stephens, Diego Ferreira and Arman Tsarukyan. Even if the last of those was a controversial decision win, it established that Gamrot could hang with just about anyone in the lightweight division on the mat, provided they looked to scramble. Beneil Dariush chose to just stifle Gamrot’s wrestling exchanges and won a clear decision as a result. Even with that loss, Gamrot seemingly won’t be denied, as he’s now on another three-fight winning streak on the back of his wrestling-heavy game plan, even if he seems to have gotten a bit lucky in the process. A decision win over Jalin Turner was another result that Gamrot eked out, and a victory over Rafael Fiziev ended prematurely due to injury. With another win over Rafael dos Anjos in dominant fashion, Gamrot figured to be thrust into a fight with the lightweight elite. Instead, he takes a bit of a step back in the rankings for a tough bout against Hooker.
Hooker’s always dangerous but seems a bit aimless at the moment, particularly in the most inactive stretch of his UFC career. Initially added as some local flavor for the UFC’s first trip to New Zealand in 2014, Hooker proved to be a solid featherweight. He was clearly slow for the division and didn’t have much of a focused approach, but “The Hangman” was an effective go-everywhere fighter who could score some solid wins. Things truly got going for Hooker with a move up to lightweight in 2017, which coincided with him settling into a more pressure-heavy approach. The same issues still persisted in terms of Hooker being under-athletic, but he was now more effectively able to grit his way to a win, settling into the divisional Top 10. However, Hooker’s was a case where his success eventually led him into some unwinnable fights. Now a fringe contender, he was matched with opponents like Michael Chandler and Islam Makhachev, who rode their athleticism and pressure to performances that almost immediately took Hooker out of his game. After a one-off cut back down to featherweight that was clearly ill-advised, Hooker suddenly seemed lost as a fighter, which, in turn, has made it nice to see him slowly gain his confidence back over the last two years. First came a dominant win over Claudio Puelles that reaffirmed Hooker as an excellent fighter. Puelles, a fairly one-dimensional grappling specialist, ran out of ideas quickly and imploded down the stretch of a much-needed victory for Hooker. Then came his 2023 win over Turner, which saw Hooker storm back after a rough start to score a decision victory. Even with this being a step back in competition, it is still a tricky fight for Gamrot. Hooker has typically found success turning his takedown defense into offense with his long limbs, and Gamrot isn’t such a standout athlete that he figures to scare the City Kickboxing mainstay off like some opponents have in the past. Forced to pick a winner, the likeliest scenario figures to be Gamrot successfully making this fight a grind, and given that the approach has gotten him this far with winning over the judges, there’s no reason to see that changing. The pick is Gamrot via decision.
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Du Plessis vs. Adesanya
Erceg vs. Kara-France
Gamrot vs. Hooker
Rozenstruik vs. Tuivasa
Prates vs. Li
The Prelims