Anthony Hernandez vs Gregory Rodrigues
Middleweight Bout • UFC Fight Night: Hernandez vs. Rodrigues
Saturday, August 22, 2026 • Golden 1 Center, Sacramento
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Anthony Hernandez
Fighter Metrics
Victory Methods
Win Round Distribution
Gregory Rodrigues
Fighter Metrics
Victory Methods
Win Round Distribution
📋 Last 5 Fights - Anthony Hernandez
| Date | Opponent | Result | Method |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-02-21 | Sean Strickland | L | KO/TKO (Punches) (R3, 2:23) |
| 2025-08-09 | Roman Dolidze | W | SUB (Rear-Naked Choke) (R4, 2:45) |
| 2025-02-22 | Brendan Allen | W | Decision (Unanimous) (R3, 5:00) |
| 2024-10-19 | Michel Pereira | W | KO/TKO (Punches) (R5, 2:22) |
| 2024-02-17 | Roman Kopylov | W | SUB (Rear-Naked Choke) (R2, 3:23) |
📋 Last 5 Fights - Gregory Rodrigues
| Date | Opponent | Result | Method |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-03-07 | Brunno Ferreira | W | KO/TKO (Punches) (R1, —) |
| 2025-11-15 | Roman Kopylov | W | Decision (Unanimous) (R3, 5:00) |
| 2025-06-28 | Jack Hermansson | W | KO/TKO (Punch) (R1, 4:21) |
| 2025-02-15 | Jared Cannonier | L | KO/TKO (Punches) (R4, 0:21) |
| 2024-07-27 | Christian Leroy Duncan | W | Decision (Unanimous) (R3, 5:00) |
Technical Analysis
Technical Score
Cardio Score
Overall Rating
📊 Technical Score
Calculated as the average of Striking Composite (68.0 vs 52.1) and Grappling Composite (81.0 vs 64.0). Balances overall striking effectiveness with grappling ability to measure complete technical skills. Hernandez holds a 16.4-point Technical Score edge (74.5 vs 58.1).
💪 Cardio Score
Based on average fight duration, striking rate per minute, takedown rate, and finish rate. Measures cardiovascular endurance and ability to maintain pace throughout fights.
🎯 Overall Rating
Simple average of Technical Score and Cardio Score. Provides a holistic view of fighter capabilities combining skill level with physical conditioning and fight performance.
Striking Composite
Grappling Composite
Technical Radar Comparison
Visual comparison of key performance metrics between both fighters
📊 Detailed Statistical Comparison
🥊 Fight Analysis Breakdown
🧩 Anthony Hernandez Key Advantages
This is the central story of the fight. Hernandez's 6.46 takedowns per 15 minutes (rank 2 of 46, +235% vs the middleweight average) point directly at a Rodrigues takedown defense that reads 90% on paper but has never met a real wrestler. Hernandez doesn't shoot once and reset — he attempts four-plus entries per round (R1 average ~4.5), stacking clinch takedowns (222 career clinch-TD attempts, 48.6% clinch accuracy) until the math wins. Rodrigues has floored strikers and been floored by no one because no one who fights him wrestles. That ends here, and the archetype baseline is blunt: Wrestlers beat Technical Strikers 64.6% of the time.
In a five-round main event this is the single largest structural edge on the board. Hernandez averages 10:27 of fight time, maintains output through the championship rounds (champ output 109% — "Maintains Output"), and his R4-R5 average (20.3 sig) actually exceeds his R1-R3 average (18.7). His control time climbs every round: 107 → 146 → 189 seconds. Rodrigues, by contrast, has fought exactly one five-round bout and was finished in the fourth with zero recorded R4-R5 output — a "Fades Significantly" profile. The cardio gap compounds with every minute.
From the positions his wrestling reaches, Hernandez is a finishing threat, not a control-for-points grappler. His Sub/15 of 1.79 ranks 5 of 46 (+149% vs the division), built around a signature guillotine (technique rate 0.41) and a rear-naked choke (0.34) from mount (0.28), set up by 89.4% ground-strike accuracy. The RNC finishes of Dolidze (R4) and Kopylov (R2) are the template. Crucially, the guillotine is a live counter to a striker who has to march forward to land power — every Rodrigues burst into the pocket exposes the neck.
⚠️ Unfavorable Scenarios
Hernandez's worst case needs no setup. If he respects the power too much early and hangs at distance through his 66%-standing first round, he is exposed to Rodrigues's 0.58 R1 knockdown average on a chin Strickland just cleanly cracked. Hernandez almost never gets dropped (only 2 knockdowns absorbed in 36 tracked fights) but his knockdown recovery rate is 0.0%, and his striking defense is a merely average 50% (rank 30/46). A flush counter from a rank-8 puncher in the opening five minutes writes the whole story before his grind ever begins.
Rodrigues's leg-kick rate (0.61 — the highest technical marker in his profile) compromises Hernandez's base before the wrestling gets going. If the takedown entries turn sloppy, Rodrigues sprawls, hand-fights to the fence, and lands in the scramble — keeping the bout exactly where Hernandez can't finish. A slow start (16.7% risk) colliding with Rodrigues's fastest, most dangerous window is the nightmare: the main event could be over before the five-round grind Hernandez wants ever materializes.
📋 Likely Gameplan
Rodrigues's danger is front-loaded (R1 KD 0.58), so the plan is to survive the first five minutes, then make the water deep. Hernandez should change levels early and often — not shoot-and-pray, but chain four-plus entries per round and take an insurance takedown or two even without control. Every stuffed attempt still bleeds Rodrigues's gas tank and drags the fight toward the clinch, where the 48.6% clinch-TD accuracy lives. The longer it goes, the more the fight belongs to him.
Once on top, Hernandez should get to mount and grind the choke — his RNC/mount pattern (Kopylov, Dolidze) is his highest-percentage finish, and with 146-189 seconds of control per round the sub-hunt becomes relentless. Every Rodrigues forward burst is a guillotine invitation (0.41 rate). But he does not need the finish: if it goes 25 minutes, his climbing control time, top position, and rising output win rounds three through five going away. The discipline is to never force it back into Rodrigues's power.
🚀 Gregory Rodrigues Key Advantages
This is the entire case for the upset. Rodrigues carries a 1.03 knockdown average (rank 8 of 46, +87% vs the division), a 65% career KO rate, and a 0.58 R1 knockdown average — he drops opponents in better than half his opening frames. That meets a Hernandez chin that, while rarely dropped, was cleanly TKO'd by Strickland three fights ago and carries a 0.0% knockdown-recovery rate. Rodrigues is a bigger, far harder puncher than Strickland, and his cleanest path needs no setup: land flush early while Hernandez is still at distance in his 66%-standing first round.
Hernandez is genuinely vulnerable standing — his striking defense is just 50% (rank 30/46) and his early rounds are his most exposed. Rodrigues throws elite volume (5.54 SLpM, rank 8) with knockout intent, and adds leg kicks (0.61 rate) and a three-inch frame to tax the very base that drives the wrestling. The blueprint to beat Hernandez is fresh and public: deny the takedown, keep it standing, out-strike. Rodrigues can't replicate Strickland's elite TDD, but if he stuffs even a portion of the early entries and drags the fight into open space, his power turns that blueprint lethal in a way Strickland's volume never was.
⚠️ Unfavorable Scenarios
Rodrigues's 90% takedown defense meets a wrestler attempting four-plus entries per round — the single stat in this analysis most likely to collapse, because it has essentially never been stress-tested by elite chain-wrestling. Once the number breaks in round two, Hernandez racks up 146 seconds of control and starts hunting the rear-naked choke. Rodrigues has minimal offense off his back (Sub/15 rank 28, ~48s control per round of his own), so the smothering only compounds. And any level-duck or reach on a power shot in the clinch swims straight into the guillotine (0.41 rate) — the exact trap his forward pressure sets off.
If the power doesn't land clean in the first seven minutes, the KD threat drops from 0.58 to 0.00 and the fight goes long — straight into his worst nightmare. Rodrigues's only five-round fight ended in a fourth-round TKO with zero recorded R4-R5 output (champ label: "Fades Significantly"). His near-worst-in-division absorption (5.04 SApM, rank 41/46) and "Average" chin (eight knockdowns absorbed) meet Hernandez's rising championship-round output — and the man who has never won past the third round can also simply lose the cards as the control time and top position pile up.
📋 Likely Gameplan
The single most important tool for keeping the fight standing is sustained leg kicks (0.61 rate) to compromise Hernandez's drive and make the takedown entries expensive. Rodrigues cannot out-grapple Hernandez, so every second on the mat must be minimized — sprawl, frame, hand-fight the ties, deny the back, and scramble to the fence to stand immediately. And he must never reach or duck in the clinch: the guillotine is the trap, so exchanges stay at punching range, not in the phone booth where Hernandez's chokes come alive.
Rodrigues's statistical identity is an 8:29 fighter with a 0.58 R1 knockdown rate — the longer it goes, the worse his odds. He should throw everything at an early finish, loading up on the size and power in the first two rounds to end it on a chin Strickland just cracked. The one tool that could slow a cardio machine is his heavy body investment (R1 22.8% body targeting), but the range window shrinks every round against Hernandez's escalating control time — so he has to bank that damage early, while he still can.
🎯 Fight Prediction Analysis
Data-driven prediction model based on statistical analysis
📊Detailed Analysis Summary
🏟️The Format Is the Fight
Few bouts are decided so directly by their length. In three rounds, Rodrigues's case is far stronger — his power is live for two of the three frames and his output builds ("Strong Finisher," 128% R3/R1). But this is five rounds, and the two profiles could not diverge more sharply in deep water. Hernandez maintains output through the championship rounds (109%) and has finished a man in the fifth (Pereira). Rodrigues has fought exactly one five-round fight and was stopped in the fourth with zero R4-R5 output on record. Every additional round is a tax levied on the underdog and a dividend paid to the favorite — the scheduling of this fight as a main event is quietly one of the largest factors on the board.
🎯The Mirror of Danger vs. Control
Rodrigues is elite where Hernandez is weak (raw power: KD rank 8 vs 33; standing volume) and weak where Hernandez is elite (takedown rate rank 12 vs 2; submission threat rank 28 vs 5; absorption rank 41 vs 10; cardio 58 vs 86). When two fighters are strong precisely where the other is weak, the contest reduces to which strength dictates the terms. Rodrigues's strengths are finishing strengths — they only matter in the moments he creates them, mostly early. Hernandez's strengths are gatekeeping strengths — takedowns, control, conditioning — that let him choose the phase and hold it for 25 minutes. Finishers beat gatekeepers in flashes; gatekeepers beat finishers on the clock. Over five rounds, the clock is very long.
🧩The First-Round Variance Spike
Both fighters concentrate their danger in round one, but asymmetrically. Rodrigues's R1 is his peak — top knockdown threat (0.58), fastest finishing identity, highest-percentage window. Hernandez's R1 is his most exposed and least productive — 66% at distance, still setting up, lowest output of his first three rounds, zero knockdown threat of his own. That makes the opening five minutes the single highest-variance stretch of the fight: Rodrigues at his most dangerous against a Hernandez who is, by design, still calibrating and still standing. If the fight survives clean into round two, the probability distribution shifts hard toward the favorite. If it doesn't, the upset most likely already happened.
🏁Final Prediction
The most likely single outcome is Anthony Hernandez by Submission (30%) — the direct product of rank-2 takedown volume against an untested TDD, a rank-5 submission game, and a guillotine/RNC arsenal built to finish exactly this kind of forward-pressing striker. His decision path (25%) is the control-and-cardio floor as Rodrigues fades, and a late ground-and-pound TKO (12%) mirrors the Pereira fifth-round finish. Rodrigues's entire realistic case is his KO/TKO lane (24%): one flush shot, most likely early, on a chin that was cracked three fights ago. His decision (5%) and submission (4%) paths are near-formalities. The data, the format, and the archetype all favor the grappler — but "Robocop" carries the great equalizer.
💰 Betting Analysis: Model vs Market
Detailed value assessment in the betting market
📊Market Odds
🤖Analytical Model
💎Value Opportunities
MAXIMUM VALUE
Model: 30% | Fair: +233 | Implied: 30.8%
GOOD VALUE
Model: 64% | Implied: 58.3%
SLIGHT VALUE
Model: 70% | Implied: 63.0%
⚠️Key Market Discrepancies
- • Overweights the fresh Strickland TKO – That loss required elite TDD + volume boxing, a profile Rodrigues does not own.
- • Underprices the five-round cardio tax – Rodrigues's "Fades Significantly" championship history with zero R4-R5 output is not fully in the line.
- • Discounts the untested 90% TDD – A career figure never stress-tested by a rank-2 chain-wrestler is the stat most likely to break.
🎯 Comprehensive Probabilistic Analysis
100 hypothetical fight simulation based on statistical data
🏆Outcome Distribution - Anthony Hernandez
Rank-2 takedowns into an untested TDD, then the RNC/guillotine — the most likely outcome
Control, rising output and a fading opponent win the cards
Late ground-and-pound accumulation (the Pereira R5 pattern), not a knockdown
💥Outcome Distribution - Gregory Rodrigues
One flush shot, most likely early — his entire realistic case
Requires stuffing takedowns and out-lasting a cardio machine
A rank-28 sub threat scrambling into a guillotine of his own — a near-formality
⏰Fight Timeline Analysis
⚡Window of Opportunity - Gregory Rodrigues
- • First 7–10 minutes: Peak KO equity (R1 KD 0.58) on a just-cracked chin.
- • Kill the legs: Leg kicks (0.61) to compromise the base and stall entries.
- • Bank body work early: R1 22.8% body before the range window shrinks.
🎯Progressive Dominance - Anthony Hernandez
- • Chain the entries: Four-plus takedowns per round bank control and sap pace.
- • Hunt the choke: Guillotine on forward bursts, RNC from mount.
- • Late minutes: Rising output and 189s control drown a fading opponent.
🎯 Final Confidence Assessment
Confidence level and uncertainty factors
Confidence Level
A clear, multi-layered lean on Hernandez, honestly capped by a live puncher's chance
✅Supporting Factors
- • Elite chain-wrestling (TD/15 rank 2) into an untested 90% TDD
- • Top-5 submission game and elite damage ratio (rank 4)
- • Widest cardio gap in the fight (86 vs 58), rewarded by five rounds
- • Archetype baseline: Wrestler beats Technical Striker 64.6%
⚠️Risk Factors
- • Rodrigues's rank-8 power vs a chin Strickland just cracked
- • The R1 variance spike: Hernandez most exposed (66% standing)
- • Hernandez's average 50% striking defense (rank 30/46)
🏁Executive Summary
Across 100 simulations the recurring story is this: in roughly 67 of them, Anthony Hernandez weathers a dangerous, high-variance opening round, changes levels, and turns the main event into the five-round grind his wrestling, submissions, and championship gas tank are built to win — drowning Rodrigues on the mat for a submission (30), grinding out a control-heavy decision as the bigger man fades (25), or accumulating a late ground-and-pound TKO in the championship rounds (12). His control time climbs, his output rises, and Rodrigues — who has never won past the third round — has no answer off his back. In the other 33, Rodrigues's power does what the smaller man's game cannot prevent: he lands flush, most dangerously in the first round on a chin Strickland just proved is openable, and ends the night (24), with a rare decision (5) or scramble submission (4) filling the remainder.
Prediction: Hernandez by Submission is the single most likely outcome (30%), the direct product of rank-2 takedown volume into an untested 90% TDD and a rank-5 submission game hunting the RNC and guillotine. The more complete fighter, the better grappler, and by a wide margin the better-conditioned man is Hernandez — and over five rounds his wrestling, submissions, and gas tank should win far more often than not. But "Robocop" carries the great equalizer: genuine, fight-ending power, and the first man to land clean in round one could burn the whole script to the ground.