Poirier edges Hooker in UFC on ESPN 12 main event

The UFC saved the best for last in its five-week run of events at the Apex facility in Las Vegas with Saturday’s explosive UFC on ESPN 12 main event.

Dustin Poirier outlasted Dan Hooker in a five-round slugfest between lightweight contenders that will draw consideration for fight of the year, earning the favor of the judges 48-47, 48-47, 48-46.

“It was a tough one, man,” Poirier said in a statement provided by the UFC because he was transported to the hospital. “Dan came to fight. He’s a tough guy. I could have been a little bit sharper. I didn’t move out of the way of a few shots. It’s not that I disrespected Dan’s power, but I stayed in the pocket too long. I should have been sharper.”

The massive shots by both fighters were accentuated by the voices of the giddy television commentators celebrating each strike in a venue devoid of fans. It was the fifth straight Saturday an event was held in the building, with the action shifting to “Fight Island” in Abu Dhabi for the month of July.

Hooker landed 155 significant strikes to Poirier’s 153, according to the UFC’s stats, finding much of his success in the first two rounds. Poirier dropped the first two rounds on all three scorecards, but his clean sweep of the final three included a puzzling 10-8 card in the fourth.

“At the end, I started getting in my range and countering off his lazy shots,” Poirier said. “I landed some good ones and made his head snap back. I was stealing the rounds with shots like that, but I can do better.

“He hit me square with a knee and I flashed out for a second. When I came to, he was throwing hooks at me. I saw the ref and didn’t know how much time was left. We regrouped and came back stronger. That’s fighting. A fight isn’t a fight until there’s something to overcome. We fought tonight.”

Also on the card , welterweight Mike Perry earned a unanimous decision over Mickey Gall in his first fight with his girlfriend Latory Gonzalez serving as his sole cornerperson.

“She did a great job,” he said. “She kept it very simple. She shouted a couple things during the fight and I remember telling myself, ‘OK, we’re getting into this.’ In the corner, when she was rubbing the ice on me, she was asking me what I needed and what more she could do for me. It was really cool sitting there quiet and thinking how the next round was going to go.”

Perry snapped a two-fight losing streak by stuffing each of Gall’s six takedown attempts and landing the bigger shots on his feet.

He said the calm of the corner paid off late in the fight as he was able to pick up on the codes Gall’s corner was using and counter his attacks before he even started to throw them. Perry also has expressed annoyance about cornerpeople in the past being more critical than supportive.

“She was perfect because she knows she hasn’t been in my position,” he said. “She spoke from a humble standpoint from the outside. It was what I needed.

“Everybody criticized me saying his corner was going to help him, but when I’m in front of you trying to punch you in the face, you’ve got to deal with that. Not your coaches, not your game plan. You’ve got to deal with it.”

The preliminary card was highlighted by 20-year-old Kay Hansen’s nod to her fighting idol as she scored an armbar victory over former Invicta champ Jinh Yu Frey in her UFC debut.

Hansen appeared destined for the Ivy League to continue her softball career when she decided to pursue a mixed martial arts career four years ago. Ronda Rousey’s success was the catalyst.

“I used to go to fights with my family and I hated it,’ the women’s strawweight prospect said. “I just thought fighting was so dumb. Then I saw Ronda do it and I was like, ‘Oh, girls can do it too?’ Something about it just stuck with me and here I am now.

“I had never heard a woman speak so commanding, if that makes sense. I have a lot of women in my life and I saw a lot of women on TV, but she was like a lot of women weren’t. I just saw that you don’t have to be the cookie-cutter mold of a woman. That was it.”

Rousey sent out a congratulatory post on social media after Hansen’s win.

Contact Adam Hill at ahill@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AdamHillLVRJ on Twitter.