Chase Hooper embracing quirky side of MMA: 'This is a ridiculous job, and I can't take it too seriously'

LAS VEGAS – Believe it or not, Chase Hooper has fought just once inside the UFC’s famed octagon.

One could easily think it’s been more, given the amount of attention he received both before and after that UFC 245 appearance this past December. He’s the M&M guy, who at just 20 years old wouldn’t be old enough to have a drink in Las Vegas, so he settled for some <a href=" He's also a UFC Fight Pass news correspondent – famous for acting as if he was Ben Askren’s son and asking Jorge Masvidal why he had to brutalize his dad.

“I just have fun with it,” Hooper told MMA Junkie. “Like, I met the guys from Fight Pass for my last fight right before my debut, and they were super cool, and we kind of became buddies. That’s how I’ve been getting these opportunities; they’re like, ‘Oh, hey, we could do this,’ and then they ask the higher-ups at Fight Pass, and they’re usually like, ‘All right, yeah, let’s do it.’ It’s cool to get the exposure, but it’s not anything more than us just trying to do cool stuff and put cool content out there.

“I’m happy for the opportunity to be able to kind of show my personality off a little more, and it’s definitely crazy to have this much going on already with only one fight in the UFC because it feels like I’ve been here a long time just because of all the stuff I’ve been doing with them.”

Of course, Hooper (9-0-1 MMA, 1-0 UFC) is also a UFC featherweight prospect, as well. At Saturday’s UFC 250, he’ll step in against Alex Caceres (15-12 MMA, 10-10 UFC), a longtime veteran who made his promotional debut when Hooper was just 11.

Hooper admits he actually didn’t watch many fights in his younger days but is still familiar with Caceres’ work.

“I’ve definitely seen him coming up,” Hooper said. “I wasn’t like a huge fan of watching fights until I really started getting into the fighting part of stuff, when I started doing MMA. But yeah, he was on one of the cards that my coach was on back in the day around 2011, so he’s definitely been in the game for a while.

“As soon as they brought the name up, I immediately recognized it. But yeah, I think that’s what I’m here to do, is to try and fight the best guys and just show how good my skillset is, so it will be a good test against a veteran guy – but he’s also got all the wear and tear from being in the UFC for the past nine, 10 years, that I don’t have coming in at 20. We’ll see how it goes.”

At just 20, Hooper is going to be less experienced than just about any opponent he could possibly face. But “The Teenage Dream” said he really does believe his youth provides a real physical advantage.

“I don’t think that there’s a way that you can have 20 fights in the UFC and not wake up up stiff every single morning and kind of hating life a little bit,” Hooper said. “Even the training I’ve done, I’ve got a little bit, but I know that one you start getting older, your body’s not recovering as well. I can spar hard every single day of the week if I really wanted to and recover the next day. Obviously I don’t want to do that to my brain, but yeah, I think the recovery of being 20 years old is a key benefit that I have in this fight.”

So Hooper believes he’s got time on his side and is in no rush to charge up the UFC’s featherweight rankings. In the meantime, he believes he can gain valuable experience while also enjoying himself in the process. And if that means some might see him as a gimmick for the time being, that doesn’t really bother him all that much.

“I don’t really care,” Hooper said. “At the end of the day, it’s like, this is a ridiculous job, and I can’t take it too seriously. If people associate me with the Masvidal thing or Ben Askren at first, and that gets my name out there, that’s not a knock on me – that’s me kind of doing the right thing and accepting it. Growing up younger, I came up with the meme culture, I guess. That’s always been a part of my life with the cell phones and the Internet and the memes, and I feel like I can just kind of embrace that stuff, and I think it’s more genuine when I do because if I find it funny, that’s what I want to go with.

“I don’t look like a serious type of guy, so I don’t want to be that guy. That’s not my personality, so I think people would just see right through that, and it would’t go over as well. So I’m just kind of doing my thing and having fun with it, and just really trying to enjoy the time that I have in the UFC. I’ve already done it so far, but the rest of my career, I want to just have a good time and enjoy it. I don’t want to dread every fight or every interview or anything like that. I just want to have fun with it and enjoy myself.”

Picking up another UFC win would certainly provide a little more joy. Hooper believes he can do exactly that on Saturday, and he’ll look to continue his current trajectory.

“It seems like they’re just going to keep putting cards out, so if I can keep getting on those, keep getting good fights, as long as I don’t get hurt or anything, I’m just going to keep it rolling as much as I can and try to build myself in and outside of the octagon,” Hooper said.

UFC 250 takes place Saturday at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. The main card airs on pay-per-view following prelims on ESPN and early prelims on UFC Fight Pass/ESPN+.