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Brett OkamotoSep 17, 2025, 02:23 AM<\/p>\n
Close<\/a>Brett Okamoto has reported on mixed martial arts and boxing at ESPN since 2010. He has covered all of the biggest events in combat sports during that time, including in-depth interviews and features with names such as Dana White, Khabib Nurmagomedov, Conor McGregor, Nate Diaz, Floyd Mayweather, Manny Pacquiao and Georges St-Pierre. He was also a producer on the 30 for 30 film: “Chuck and Tito,” which looked back at the careers and rivalry of Chuck Liddell and Tito Ortiz. He lives in Las Vegas, and is an avid, below-average golfer in his spare time.<\/p>\n A highly anticipated middleweight matchup between Anthony “Fluffy” Hernandez<\/a> and Reinier de Ridder<\/a> will no longer take place on Oct. 18, after Hernandez withdrew due to an undisclosed injury.<\/p>\n UFC officials announced Hernandez’s withdrawal Monday. De Ridder (12-2) will remain on the card and now face fellow middleweight contender Brendan Allen<\/a> (25-7). The 185-pound contest headlines UFC Fight Night in Vancouver<\/a>.<\/p>\n Hernandez apologized to the UFC and de Ridder in a social media post Monday night, adding that he was focused on “getting healthy so I can come back stronger than ever.”<\/p>\n The UFC is looking for its next middleweight title challenger, and the original bout between Hernandez and De Ridder could have gone a long way in shaping the landscape. Khamzat Chimaev<\/a> claimed the championship by defeating Dricus Du Plessis<\/a> via unanimous decision in August<\/a>. Currently, the short list of challengers for Chimaev includes France’s Nassourdine Imavov<\/a>, Hernandez and De Ridder, with an outside possibility of former champion Sean Strickland<\/a>.<\/p>\n De Ridder will be making his fifth UFC appearance in a span of less than 12 months. He is coming off a split decision win<\/a> against former champion Robert Whittaker<\/a> in July. Allen, a four-year veteran of the UFC, is coming off an entertaining decision win<\/a> over Marvin Vettori<\/a> in July at UFC 318.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brett OkamotoSep 17, 2025, 02:23 AM CloseBrett Okamoto has reported on mixed martial arts and boxing at ESPN…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":147939,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,785,85],"class_list":["post-147938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147938"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147938\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/147939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}