{"id":321114,"date":"2019-08-01T13:16:46","date_gmt":"2019-08-01T20:16:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/?p=321114"},"modified":"2019-08-01T13:16:46","modified_gmt":"2019-08-01T20:16:46","slug":"al-iaquinta-responds-to-dan-hookers-ducking-accusations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/ufc\/al-iaquinta-responds-to-dan-hookers-ducking-accusations\/","title":{"rendered":"Al Iaquinta responds to Dan Hooker’s ducking accusations"},"content":{"rendered":"

New Zealand’s Dan Hooker recently campaigned for a fight with Al Iaquinta, suggesting the meeting occur at UFC 243 in Melbourne, Australia, but ultimately moved on and accused Iaquinta of ducking him.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cHe keeps saying he wants it; I said that\u2019s the fight to make,\u201d Hooker told\u00a0MMA Junkie <\/a>recently. \u201cIf I\u2019m lying, the fight would be booked already.<\/p>\n

\u201c(Iaquinta is) not taking the fight; I\u2019ll fight (Alexander) Hernandez.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking on MMA Junkie Radio<\/a> on Thursday, Al Iaquinta responded to this claim from Hooker. He’s offering a different version of the story.<\/p>\n

“The fight was never offered to me,” he said. “In fact, I was the one that offered it to Dan Hooker. And when Dan Hooker started talking all of his nonsense on Twitter, I was the one that offered the fight to the UFC. First, UFC \u2014 [the] matchmakers, higher-ups \u2014 they were under the impression that I wanted to fight somewhere else. But I love Australia. I’ve fought there before, and I loved it so much that I went back a second time and I taught seminars all along the East Coast of Australia. I would like to say, I’m pretty freakin’ Australian for an American.<\/p>\n

“He did kind of throw the [matchup] out first,” Iaquinta continued. “He said my name after his fight [with James Vick], he had a great fight, big knockout win, and I think that’s the only reason I’m even entertaining this as a fight, because he did perform so well in his fight. He looked great. He’s a tough guy. I think he has a lot more skills than his rank [suggests] in the lightweight division. I don’t know what he’s ranked right now, but I’d say he’s up there. He’s a tough fight, and it would be in Australia. He might not even know how much the Australian people love me, and being from New Zealand I don’t know how they feel about him.<\/p>\n

“I think it has all the makings to be a great fight,” he concluded. “I’m the one waiting for the call now. He’s the one saying that the UFC is telling him that I turned down the fight, but I was never offered the fight. In fact, I offered them the fight. Nobody came to me about it, I was the one that reached out to the UFC.”<\/p>\n

Needless to say, Al Iaquinta seems to be up for the matchup \u2014 contrary to the impression Hooker is under.<\/p>\n

This article first appeared on\u00a0<\/i>BJPENN.COM<\/i><\/span><\/a>\u00a0on 8\/1\/2019. <\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New Zealand’s Dan Hooker recently campaigned for a fight with Al Iaquinta, suggesting the meeting occur at UFC 243 in Melbourne, Australia, but ultimately moved on and accused Iaquinta of ducking him. \u201cHe keeps saying he wants it; I said that\u2019s the fight to make,\u201d Hooker told\u00a0MMA Junkie recently. \u201cIf I\u2019m lying, the fight would […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54430,"featured_media":312347,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[10523,28687,39610],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nAl Iaquinta responds to Dan Hooker's ducking accusations | BJPenn.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Long-time lightweight contender "Raging" Al Iaquinta responds to Dan Hooker's claim that he turned down a UFC 243 fight with him.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link 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