{"id":502472,"date":"2026-02-25T05:25:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T05:25:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/502472\/"},"modified":"2026-02-25T05:25:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T05:25:07","slug":"sean-strickland-returns-to-top-three","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/502472\/","title":{"rendered":"Sean Strickland returns to top three"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>MMA Junkie rankings, Feb. 24: Sean Strickland returns to top three<a class=\"gnt_bc\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Feb. 24, 2026, 10:00 p.m. ET<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">The UFC&#8217;s return to Texas with UFC Fight Night 267 in Houston produced some big moments and significant results.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Former UFC middleweight champion <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/mmajunkie.usatoday.com\/fighters\/sean-strickland\/\" data-autotag=\"16818cdf-3265-4bdc-a8a8-f2d91f3af900\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" data-t-l=\":b|e|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\">Sean Strickland<\/a> proved he&#8217;s still among the absolute elite in the weight class when he turned back the streaking <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/mmajunkie.usatoday.com\/fighters\/anthony-hernandez\/\" data-autotag=\"8faaa23e-63f5-46d9-a4b6-410b56523f76\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" data-t-l=\":b|e|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\">Anthony Hernandez<\/a> with a third-round TKO. It was his first fight in 12 months, and the lopsided result put the controversial ex-titleholder back into the top three at 185 pounds.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Elsewhere on the card, Uros Medic delivered a 79-second knockout of longtime welterweight threat Geoff Neal to put himself on the radar at 170 pounds, but just short of a top 15 ranking.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Watch the video above to see all the new developments across every weight class reached, Check out all of the moves in the latest <a href=\"http:\/\/mmajunkie.usatoday.com\/rankings\/\" data-t-l=\":b|e|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">USA TODAY Sports\/MMA Junkie rankings<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img class=\"gnt_em_cp_cw_i\" data-g-r=\"lazy\" data-gl-src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1771997107_475_88519197007-hag-ak-qj-ws-aa-zlo-n.jpg\" data-gl- decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\u00a9 2026 mmajunkie.usatoday.com. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MMA Junkie rankings, Feb. 24: Sean Strickland returns to top three Feb. 24, 2026, 10:00 p.m. ET The&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":502473,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[202558,64,63,786,785,85,203779,203780,247578,252611,203781,235716,202563,247577,203139,205671,29215,202561],"class_list":{"0":"post-502472","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-accessfree","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-fighting","12":"tag-mma","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-sstssportsufc","15":"tag-sstsnufc","16":"tag-taganthony-hernandez","17":"tag-taghouston","18":"tag-tagmartial-arts","19":"tag-tagmma-rankings","20":"tag-tagoverall-positive","21":"tag-tagsean-strickland","22":"tag-tagsports-news","23":"tag-tagufc","24":"tag-tx","25":"tag-typestory"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502472","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=502472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502472\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/502473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=502472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=502472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=502472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}