{"id":430611,"date":"2025-12-07T08:41:26","date_gmt":"2025-12-07T08:41:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/430611\/"},"modified":"2025-12-07T08:41:26","modified_gmt":"2025-12-07T08:41:26","slug":"sean-strickland-vs-anthony-hernandez-set-to-headline-ufc-fight-night-in-houston","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/430611\/","title":{"rendered":"Sean Strickland vs. Anthony Hernandez set to headline UFC Fight Night in Houston"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>    <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"Article-featuredImageImg\" alt=\"sean-strickland-prefight-ufc312.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/sean-strickland-prefight-ufc312.jpg\" loading=\"lazy\" height=\"433\" width=\"770\"\/><\/p>\n<p>                Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>Anthony Hernandez is finally getting the big fight he&#8217;s worked hard for. &#8220;Fluffy&#8221; draws former UFC middleweight champion Sean Strickland at UFC Fight Night in Houston on Feb. 21. The fight was announced on Saturday during the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbssports.com\/ufc\/news\/ufc-323-live-updates-results-merab-dvalishvili-petr-yan-scorecard-analysis-highlights\/live\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">UFC 323 PPV broadcast<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Hernandez built a cult following by fighting all comers, no matter who the promotion put in front of him. A Fight Night main event against Reinier de Ridder was his chance to earn a middleweight title shot; however, an injury forced him off the card. Brendan Allen, who Hernandez beat in February, upset De Ridder in October, clearing an obstacle from Hernandez&#8217;s path.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Strickland returns to action for the first time since his second title loss to former champion Dricus du Plessis. Currently ranked No. 3 in the UFC&#8217;s official 185-pound rankings, a win is imperative if he wants to fight reigning champ Khamzat Chimaev.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The winner of this five-round main event must also contend with Nassourdine Imavov, who&#8217;s currently ranked No. 2 and on a five-fight winning streak. Herandez has won eight consecutive exciting fights; meanwhile, Strickland holds a 2023 victory over Imavov.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Getty Images Anthony Hernandez is finally getting the big fight he&#8217;s worked hard for. &#8220;Fluffy&#8221; draws former UFC&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":430612,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5130],"tags":[200117,4345,200116,200118,358,3187,552,200115],"class_list":{"0":"post-430611","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston","8":"tag-anthony-hernandez-next-fight","9":"tag-houston","10":"tag-sean-strickland-next-fight","11":"tag-sean-strickland-vs-anthony-hernandez-fight-night-date","12":"tag-texas","13":"tag-tx","14":"tag-ufc","15":"tag-ufc-fight-night-houston"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115677396095612419","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=430611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430611\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/430612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=430611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=430611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=430611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}