Sean Strickland is preparing for a very different kind of fight.
Just days before his return at UFC Houston on February 22, the former UFC middleweight champion revealed a surprising approach for his main event clash with Anthony Hernandez.
For years, Strickland has been known primarily as a pressure striker. Submissions have rarely been part of his game, and he hasn’t finished an opponent on the ground in more than a decade.
Yet heading into this matchup, he’s openly talking about wrestling and grappling…
And he’s doing so against one of the division’s most dangerous grapplers:
I’ve never done much grappling, especially this late into my career, so this is a test that I wanted.
I do much more wrestling than I do striking in my training camps – so really it’s just having the gas tank to wrestle for five rounds.
Generally, he takes guys down and breaks them, but I’m not a guy who breaks, so it should be fun.
Hernandez has built a reputation for tremendous ground pressure and has submitted roughly half of his professional opponents.
He’s even tapped out elite grappler Rodolfo Vieira.
Strickland, however, believes the grappling exchanges won’t just be survivable:
I’m not the hardest guy to take down and I don’t care about getting taken down.
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.
“I’ll TKO him in the 4th or 5th”
Sean Strickland (@SStricklandMMA) envisions a lot of grappling followed by a finish of Hernandez in the main event of #UFCHouston this Saturday
Preview the #UFCHouston card ➡️ https://t.co/NUcYuG2XNx pic.twitter.com/QU7ruvl6S5
— UFC News (@UFCNews) February 17, 2026
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