Former interim lightweight champion, Dustin Poirier, pulled out a tense unanimous decision by scores of 48-47, 48-47 and 48-46 over Dan Hooker at UFC Fight Night in Las Vegas and that’s exactly what the two fighters offered.
Hooker started out as a lion hitting the target the most in the first round, taking advantage of Poirier’s slow start to the fight, which had difficulty finding his distance at the start of the fight.
In the second round, Poirier woke up with solid touches, notably cutting the New Zealander to the right brow bone, but it was Hooker who regained control with solid combinations of punches in the last minute spectacular.
From the third round Poirier however regained control of the fight. The American almost caught the New Zealander in his trap with the guillotine.
Poirier maintained his opponent head for a long time under the force of his biceps, but Hooker managed to barely extricate himself. The American fighter almost did it again with an arm key and a scapula in the fourth round, but once again his opponent was able to resist these two very difficult positions.
The fifth and final round was hotly contested as Hooker attempted several leads to collect points, but it was Poirier who did enough to get back on track.
Poirier was back in the octagon for the first time since losing in the third round against lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov at UFC 242 last September in Abu Dhabi.
Meanwhile, in the semifinals, Mike Perry ended a two-game losing streak with a unanimous decision win over Mickey Gall. The judges handed over three identical cards from 29-28.
Gall almost surprised Perry with a triangular choke with ten seconds to go in the third round, but Perry managed to avoid the catch and conclude his victory on the judges’ cards.
“I can only trust myself in the octagon. Mickey trained very well. Many people thought he would win this fight, but I trained like a professional, I worked like a professional for this victory” Perry said.
