A major middleweight fight between Reiner de Ridder and Anthony Hernandez has been unveiled as the headliner for UFC Fight Night 262 in Vancouver, Canada on October 18th.

Dana White announced the news and raised the stakes by revealing that the fight could be a potential title eliminator to decide who’ll fight newly crowned middleweight champ Khamzat Chimaev, though it’ll face fierce competition from another upcoming match-up between Nassourdine Imavov and Caio Borralho in September.

“In the main event, it’s a five-round fight between middleweight contenders Reiner de Ridder and Anthony “Fluffy” Hernandez,” White said in a video on social media. “And obviously, next month in Paris, we have another top middleweight contender fight between No. 2-ranked Imavov and 7th-ranked Borralho. And Vancouver is a few weeks later. We’ll see how this whole thing plays out, and we’re gonna end up with a middleweight challenger for Khamzat Chimaev’s title that he just won. So these fights have massive implications.”

The 34-year-old de Ridder arrived in the UFC last year as a former two-division ONE FC champion and he’s made an immediate impact in the division by compiling four wins since then, defeating Gerald Meerschaert, Kevin Holland, Bo Nickal and most recently Robert Whittaker to reach No.5 in the rankings.

‘Fluffy’ Hernandez has also been doing big things in the division as the 31-year-old is now on an eight-fight winning streak after submitting Roman Dolidze just a couple of weeks ago, after also besting the likes of Brendan Allen, Michel Pereira and Roman Kopylov to reach No.6 on the 185lb ladder.

De Ridder vs. Hernandez fronts a UFC Fight Night 262 that will also feature a co-main event pairing of Kevin Holland vs. Mike Malott, while Manon Fiorot vs. Jasmine Judavicious and Marlon Vera vs. Aiemann Zahabi are also on-board.