Chase Hooper had a lot riding on UFC Fight Night 281.
It would’ve been three-in-a-row had he lost vs. Mitch Ramirez on Saturday at Paycom Center in Oklahoma City. Given his situation, Hooper (17-5-1 MMA, 9-5 UFC) revealed post-fight that he told his wife he’d return to a normal working job had he lost. Luckily for him, the desk job isn’t in his immediate future.
“I told my wife, ‘I’m not losing three in a row. If I lose three fights in a row, I don’t deserve to be here. I need to figure something else out,'” Hooper said after the fight (per UFC). “It was very much a make-or-break moment for me. It’s so nice because it’s been over a year since I won my last fight. It was the Jim Miller fight back in April of last year. it’s been over a year since I’ve been able to feel this. It’s a drug. You crave it. It’s one of those things that was a make-or-break moment for me and I told my wife, ‘If I lose this next fight, I’m going to get a job, back to normal,’ that type of stuff. But we’re here and I’ll push those worries off. I still have the skill set. I still deserve to be here – and onto the next one.”
Not only did Hooper win, he dominated Ramirez (8-3 MMA, 0-3 UFC) en route to a rear-naked choke submission 2:15 into Round 1. The victory was his first since a unanimous decision win over Jim Miller in April 2025 and his first finish since he snatched an armbar against Clay Guida in December 2024.
Hooper credits the recently-retired Michael Chiesa for giving some tips during training camp that directly contributed to the finish Saturday.
“I mean, this is stuff I do every single night at the gym: cracking guys, working in, getting the back-takes,” Hooper said. “I came up on top with a little body triangle. I heard him go ‘Ugh.’ He said it actually was his knee that blew out somehow, which is a super, super weird angle. I don’t know how that ended up happening. I thought it was his ribs, so I was like, ‘OK, time to re-attack this, reacquire it.’ I was just in that flow state. I felt my forearm get under the chin. Honestly, he had really good submission defense in all his previous fights. My coach was like, ‘Hey, do not worry about subs first round. His sub defense is too good. You’re going to blow your arms out.’ But I kept trying to slip it in. I felt it under the neck and I was like, ‘Oh, we’re in. Got to do it.’ Obviously, it paid off.”
“It was super validating to just know the thing that got me into the sport, the thing that got me here to the UFC, is what’s keeping me here. I had a really good talk with Michael Chiesa. I was on the card with him for his retirement fight. I went out to Spokane this camp and I just wanted to take a couple plays out of his book and see how he did it. He made an entire career out of being a grappler and (he had) tons of submission wins in his own right. I took a couple pages out of his playbook and obviously, it worked out.”
