An unfortunate accident in sparring led to Dan Hooker's withdrawal from UFC 313.

Hooker, who was scheduled to face Justin Gaethje in a five-round, co-main event bout on March 8 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, offered further detail regarding the injury in a recent interview with Sky Sports New Zealand.

"One of the paws is not doing too well," Hooker said. "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. 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."

Hooker is unsure of the promotion's plans in the aftermath of the injury. At the moment, a replacement opponent for Gaethje has not been announced with less than two weeks to go before UFC 313.

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

Hooker had won his last three Octagon appearances, posting successive victories over Claudio Puelles, Jalin Turner and Mateusz Gamrot. Prior to that, the 35-year-old Kiwki had lost four of his previous five promotional outings. Hooker is 14-8 during his UFC tenure overall.

"It's unfortunate that it was this close," Hooker said. "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."

UFC 313 is headlined by a light heavyweight title tilt between Alex Pereira and Magomed Ankalaev.