{"id":491555,"date":"2026-02-20T03:33:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T03:33:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/491555\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T03:33:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T03:33:12","slug":"sean-strickland-predicts-hell-out-wrestle-fluffy-at-ufc-houston","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/491555\/","title":{"rendered":"Sean Strickland Predicts He’ll Out-Wrestle Fluffy at UFC Houston"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sean Strickland<\/a> feels he has all the skills that will give him a big edge when he faces off with Anthony “Fluffy” Hernandez in the main event of UFC Houston<\/a> this weekend.<\/p>\n

Strickland is known for being a pressure-heavy fighter, but most of that comes from his boxing. Strickland, in fact, prefers to use his fists when in combat.<\/p>\n

But that doesn’t mean he’s not a good grappler; in fact, Strickland, who is a black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, is considered underrated in the discipline.<\/p>\n

Hernandez is known for his grappling, but Strickland says anyone expecting “Fluffy” to succeed with takedowns and wrestling might be in for a surprise.<\/p>\n

\"YouTube<\/p>\n

During the UFC Houston media day, Strickland hinted that he may use grappling to help him set up a late finish.<\/p>\n

“I’m not the hardest guy to take down \u2014 and I don’t care about getting taken down,” Strickland said. “I think it’s going to be a five-round grappling match, which I will out-grapple him. And then I’ll TKO him in the fourth or fifth round.”<\/p>\n

Strickland, in fact, says he’s been looking forward to this matchup with Hernandez as a means of testing his grappling capabilities.<\/p>\n

“I’ve never done much grappling, especially this late into my career, so this is a test that I wanted,” Strickland said. “I do much more wrestling than I do striking in my training camps \u2014 so really it’s just having the gas tank to wrestle for five rounds. <\/p>\n

“Generally, he takes guys down and breaks them, but I\u2019m not a guy who breaks.”<\/p>\n

Strickland is 4-2 in his last six. This will be his first fight since losing a middleweight championship rematch with Dricus Du Plessis at UFC 312. Strickland upset Israel Adesanya for the title at UFC 293 but dropped the title to DDP at UFC 297.<\/p>\n

Hernandez has won eight straight, including a decision win over Brendan Allen and a submission win over Roman Dolidze last year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sean Strickland feels he has all the skills that will give him a big edge when he faces…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":491556,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[44177,64,63,786,785,43022,85,212348],"class_list":{"0":"post-491555","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-anthony-hernandez","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-fighting","12":"tag-mma","13":"tag-sean-strickland","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-ufc-houston"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491555","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=491555"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491555\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/491556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=491555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=491555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=491555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}