Solid matchup!
You'd think after 5 wins like that they'd give him a bigger step up. Alexander is another guy at the jim miller level
Knowing Hernandez he will look competitive for round one then be dominated for ten minutes if not finished.I honestly think Chase works Hernandez if this is real.
Chase is growing on me as a fighter. Kid is good and has serious talent and he’s still young too.
Hernandez beat Miller like 3 years ago when Miller was better.
It’s a style test more importantly - Hooper can clearly smoke washed old guys like Guida/Miller or pure strikers like Slava Claus.
Giving him a brick shit house wrestler that is still in his relative athletic prime seems like a measured step up.
It’s actually pretty nuanced and favorable match-making to slowly build a guy with potential, which is what they should be doing with prospects they care about.
You'd think after 5 wins like that they'd give him a bigger step up. Alexander is another guy at the jim miller level
Not really considering he fought Miller as well and beat the absolute shit out of him. It’s a decent step up for a “prospect” like Hooper.
Hernandez vs miller was competitive, and it was three years ago. He has since lost multiple fights, and barely put a two fight win streak together in the division. Chase has never lost at LW, is on a 5 fight wins streak, and hasn't even had a competitive fight in the weightclass. It doesn't feel like a step up for chase in my opinion. Hernandez is only still in the UFC because his last two fights were against bottom feeders. You can say Chase's last fights were similar, but he's done it 5 times already.
It wasn’t competitive and it wasn’t three years ago…
They know if they give Hooper TOO much of a step up he’ll get the absolute shit beaten out of him like he has numerous times before.

I Thought Hern won but it was a very close fight.It was 2 years and a couple months ago. My bad. How was it not competive?
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My point, though, was that Hernandez lost multiple times since that win, and is only now on a two fight win streak over low level guys, and one of those wins was a split. As I said, this is a step sideways at best for chase. The crux of your whole argument is essentially "I think chase would fail again if given a step up anyways, so may as well let him beat a low level guy for the 6th time straight"