Dan Hooker has gone into detail on the injury that forced his withdrawal from a scheduled UFC 313 date with Justin Gaethje.

The New Zealander was chasing what could have been his fourth UFC win in succession in the keenly-anticipated March 8 scrap with Gaethje but word filtered out on Tuesday that the bout was in jeopardy due to an injury sustained by Hooker in his preparation. Soon afterwards, Hooker confirmed that he had sustained a “busted paw” — and has since elaborated on what exactly forced his withdrawal from one of the most high profile bouts on his career to date.

“One of the paws is not doing too well,” he told Sky Sports New Zealand, as noted by MMA Fighting.

“I was sparring last night, as I do, just letting some hooks go, just throwing some bombs down range, and I just caught one of the boys on the top of the dome with my knuckle,” he said. “I don’t think too much of it but they sent me off to get a CT scan. Had a little CT scan and they told me my hand is fractured.”

That said, Hooker stated that he was still more than happy to compete but said that his injury would not survive scrutiny from UFC medics ahead of the bout.

“So yeah, I obviously still would fight,” Hooker said. “But with the medicals they squeeze your hands … So we’ll see how it all plays out. We’ll see if we can kick this fight down the road or we’ll just wait and see.

“It’s unfortunate that it was this close. Obviously, gutted for all the fans that I know that were excited for this fight. That’s probably the main thing, I think. The Lords of War were not happy, and they took it away from you.”