Dan Hooker’s coach puts full confidence in his team and he also isn’t too fond of Daniel Cormier.
Much has been made over Hooker’s bout with Edson Barboza at UFC Milwaukee. “The Hangman” showed grit, but he simply took too much punishment to take his opponent the distance. The fight was stopped by the referee in the third round and many wondered if Hooker’s corner should’ve stepped in sooner.
Dan Hooker’s Coach Responds To Critics
Hooker’s coach Eugene Bareman recently spoke to MMAFighting.com. He said that he trusts his team in response to those who say the corner should’ve stepped in:
“I wasn’t actually aware of too much criticism until [Karl Webber] messaged me, because I’m not too savvy when it comes to social media, I just don’t keep up with it. [Webber] messaged me saying, ‘Apologies, you’re probably going to get a bit of heat for not throwing the towel in.’ He told me himself: ‘I was there and I know Dan, we know each other very well, and there was no way that he wanted me to throw the towel in at that point.’ Whether I would’ve thrown the towel in … I’m not even going to get into that, to be honest. I back the decision that those guys made, I put them in the corner and I have 100 percent faith in them.”
Bareman was attending a wedding, so he couldn’t make it to the fight for Hooker. The coach, however, is well aware of Cormier’s criticisms during the FOX broadcast. He said the following in response:
“Several days after that [Diakiese] fight, I was made aware of a tweet Daniel Cormier put out in the early minutes of that fight, ridiculing the two guys, basically saying ‘this isn’t what we wanted,’ because he thought it was going to be an action-packed fight. To people who know things about the sport, we had a pretty clear gameplan and part of that gameplan was not rushing in and taking our time a little bit. At the end of the day, the gameplan worked, because being patient led to Diakiese taking a sloppy shot and falling into a guillotine. Daniel Cormier was highly critical of that plan at the start of that fight. We come to this fight, we give him the action-packed fight that he wanted, but we still can’t satisfy the guy.”
Bareman went on to say that the media “needs something to talk about” and that’s why the non-corner stoppage blew up.
Do you think Eugene Bareman has a point, or is he trying to damage control?
