A victorious Hooker challenged former UFC Interim Lightweight Champion Dustin Poirier after the bout, but Poirier would rather wait for a bout against Conor McGregor, which amused Hooker.
“He’s going to fight who?” Hooker said at the UFC 243 post-fight news conference (via Mike Bohn & Ken Hathaway of MMA Junkie). “If he wants to sit around chasing leprechauns, that’s his own problem. If he wants a real fight and he’ll take it, he knows where to find me.”
Poirier and McGregor met for the first time at UFC 178 in September of 2014, with McGregor scoring a first round TKO win on that night.
Hooker has a plan for his future fights, which is to follow the path of UFC Lightweight Champion Khabib Nurmagomedov.
“This is the No. 6-ranked guy in the world who went from a title fight two fights ago,” Hooker said. “That’s why Dustin is on my hit list. I wanted to follow Khabib’s last two fights. I want to fight Al Iaquinta and then I want to fight Dustin and take him out.”
A rematch between Poirier and McGregor is anything but official at the most, but the two have been going back and forth through social media in recent days.