Sean Strickland is just days away from facing Anthony Hernandez in the main event of UFC Houston on February 22nd, 2026 and he has a pretty surprising gameplan for his opponent. It will be his first fight since losing the UFC middleweight world championship to Dricus Du Plessis and after a year away from the octagon, it looks like he wants to make some changes to approach. Strickland has historically been more of a striker than a grappler throughout his career and it’s been over a decade since he submitted anyone, but now he’s planning on using his grappling more as he attempts to build back up to a title-shot.
He couldn’t have picked a tougher time to make that change though, as Hernandez is a fantastic grappler who has submitted half of his opponents in his MMA career. He’s even submitted elite grapplers like Rodolfo Vieira, so the ground should be where he has his biggest advantage. Strickland sees it a little differently though:
“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.”
Not only does Strickland think he can survive Hernandez’s grappling, he thinks that he’ll win those exchanges en route to winning the fight:
“I think we will grapple. 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.”
The full interview with Sean Strickland explains his gameplan for Anthony Hernandez was uploaded to the official X account of the UFC News:
