{"id":489922,"date":"2026-02-21T12:38:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T12:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/489922\/"},"modified":"2026-02-21T12:38:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T12:38:10","slug":"sean-strickland-suffered-brutal-weight-cut-for-ufc-houston-main-event","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/489922\/","title":{"rendered":"Sean Strickland suffered brutal weight cut for UFC Houston main event"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Sean Strickland appeared to be in really rough shape during his weight cut for Saturday\u2019s main event clash with Anthony Hernandez at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmamania.com\/latest-news\/412214\/ufc-houston-fight-card-start-time-date-location-strickland-vs-hernandez\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">UFC Houston<\/a>, but when it was all said and done the former UFC middleweight champion <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmamania.com\/ufc-weigh-in-video\/423161\/live-ufc-houston-early-weigh-ins-results-strickland-vs-hernandez\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">still made weight<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">This is a big weekend for Strickland. The former 185-pound titleholder is just 1-2 in his last three trips to the cage and looking to turn in a memorable return to the win column in order to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmamania.com\/ufc-white-house-2026-fight-card-start-time-full-results-dana-white-conor-mcgregor-cbs-mma\/423025\/what-controversy-coach-expects-ufc-fans-get-behind-sean-strickland-white-house-main-event\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">land a spot on UFC\u2019s White House card<\/a>. Strickland will have to defy the odds considering Hernandez is a sizeable betting favorite for UFC Houston\u2019s main event, but the brash middleweight contender has pulled off some improbable performances in the past.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Unfortunately for Strickland, he didn\u2019t have the greatest cut down to 185 pounds in advance to Saturday\u2019s five-round headliner. Strickland walks around pretty heavy outside of camp so he\u2019s never one for an easy weight cut. However, this week\u2019s cut seemed worse than most. Even Strickland admitted the weight cut is worse than the actual fight before revealing he was experiencing \u201cdouble vision\u201d and \u201ccan only see out of one eye.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">\u201cI can only see out of one eye. I have like double vision,\u201d said Strickland. \u201cI think that\u2019s the worst part about cutting weight. Always having to walk with one eye closed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">\u201cThis is really what we get paid to do is cutting weight,\u201d he later added. \u201cIt\u2019s worse than the fight.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">UFC Houston will go down tomorrow night (Sat., Feb. 21, 2026) LIVE on <a href=\"https:\/\/paramountplus.qflm.net\/c\/482924\/175360\/3065?subId1=SBNation&amp;u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.paramountplus.com%2Frecommended%2Fnews%2F1010954%2Fufc-paramount-plus-streaming-deal&amp;subId2=[sb0220awD][419837][][r][][][][][][][google.com]\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Paramount+<\/a> from inside Toyota Center in Houston, Tex., with Strickland vs. Hernandez serving as the main event. The winner could line themselves up for the next shot at UFC middleweight champion Khamzat Chimaev.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">For more UFC Houston fight card news click <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmamania.com\/latest-news\/412214\/ufc-houston-fight-card-start-time-date-location-strickland-vs-hernandez\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">HERE<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sean Strickland appeared to be in really rough shape during his weight cut for Saturday\u2019s main event clash&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":489923,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,33601,638,82,139445,702],"class_list":["post-489922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fighting","tag-latest-ufc-mma-news","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc-on-paramount","tag-ufc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=489922"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489922\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/489923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=489922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=489922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=489922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}