Back on May 24, Dan Hooker introduced the “One Minute Scraps” tournament. Each fight was one minute long, and 32 amateur fighters competed for a $50K grand prize. The entire tournament was completed in an hour, with each participant earning $1K just for competing.
Clearly, Hooker’s event was a success, and the former UFC fighter is looking for a venue for his next event.
UFC Fans Try to Help Dan Hooker Find a Venue
With basically no restrictions as to where the event could take place, Hooker took to social media to see if the fans had any viable options for him. With quite a divided crowd after the first event, plenty of UFC fans, and MMA fans in general, showed up in the comments to assist Hooker in getting the second tournament off and running.
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“Yo I need a carpark or warehouse or something for my next show,” Hooker said. “So if you have access to something like that, then hit me up. But if you’re going to cry when they put us in handcuffs, then forget about it.”
After boxing fans and even local authorities in New Zealand resisted the first tournament, Hooker did everything in his power to ensure it was as safe as possible. Only one injury was sustained, a minor arm injury. Other than that, Hooker’s event ran smoothly, and he’s looking to replicate that success.
The top comment on his post said, “Let’s go WESTSIDE MOTORCYCLES only the baddest warehouse for the job.” With a warehouse being a viable option, someone offered, “I got a 120-acre farm in Auckland if you need.”
Other fans suggested numerous venues. “Shaun Johnson Stadium” and “The Kaipara Tavern car park in helensvile” were both options presented to Hooker. Someone else commented, “Should try hit up a brewery bro and partner with them,” while one user simply put, “G just use a rugby field.”
One fan in particular had the safety of the fighters in mind, “For your own sake/rep, please don’t do it on concrete/tarseal, will only take one KO’d dude to fall backwards and crack head then she is all over on many levels…”
That fan may have taken offense to the suggestion of a car park, as clips from the first event show it taking place on grass. While not the best surface either, it would be much better than a knocked-out fighter landing on concrete. Seeing as the first event had quite a bit of backlash, someone getting injured because they were knocked out on a hard surface would likely be the end of these tournaments.