A middleweight fight between Sean Strickland and Anthony ‘Fluffy’ Hernandez has been announced as the main event for UFC Fight Night 268 in Houston, Texas on February 21st.

The UFC had apparently initially tried to book the fight for UFC 325 in Sydney on January 31st, but both Strickland revealed he didn’t want to fight in Australia due to issues with taxes and fight insurance down under, and so the promotion opted to switch it up to this domestic show instead.

The 34-year-old Strickland won the middleweight title with a shock win over Israel Adesanya in Australia back in 2023, but soon lost it again to Dricus du Plessis in January of 2024 via split-decision.

Strickland has only fought twice since then, beating Paulo Costa by split-decision, before suffering a more convincing unanimous decision defeat to DDP back in February of this year.

Now Strickland will go up against the in-form Hernandez, who is now on an eight-fight winning streak after adding two more victories to his resume this year thanks to a unanimous decision win over Brendan Allen followed by a rear-naked choke submission of Roman Dolidze.

That took the 32-year-old Hernandez up to No.4 in the 185lb rankings, just one spot below the 3rd placed Strickland.