“It’s good — we have a really good group of people there that push me,” he said, which amounts to a rave review from the Californian. “It’s nice.”
With things at the top end of the middleweight division currently in a holding pattern as everyone awaits the first title defense from champion Khamzat Chimaev, the opportunity to share the Octagon with a like-minded individual like Hernandez is precisely what Strickland was hoping for heading into 2026.
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“I wanted ‘Fluffy,’ I asked for it, and he wanted it,” began Strickland, who makes his seventh main event appearance in his last eight fights on Saturday. “Stylistically, I’ve never done much grappling, especially later in my career. It’s a test that I wanted and the guy’s on a six- or eight-fight winning streak, so what better name is there that you could beat?”
The matchup with Hernandez is as juicy a pairing as you’re going to find in the division at the moment: a clash between two cardio monsters that rarely take a backward step and genuinely love being deep in the muck inside the Octagon. Where Strickland has frequently drowned his opponents with high volume striking, Hernandez is more of a suffocate-you-with-relentless-grappling type, setting the stage for a unique clash of styles between two men that thrive on controlling the tempo.
