Hernandez vs Rodrigues

The key to the fight

THE DECIDING FACTOR

A Takedown Defense Nobody Has Tested

Gregory Rodrigues has 75% takedown defense. It's a pretty number and it's nearly meaningless, because it comes from 12 attempts across 13 UFC fights. Nobody has ever seriously tried to wrestle him: Dusko Todorovic shot four times and landed none, Jared Cannonier tried three, Roman Kopylov tried two and hit both.

Add up five years in the Octagon and Robocop has had to defend fewer takedowns than Anthony Hernandez usually throws in one fight. Hernandez shoots 5.88 takedowns per 15 minutes, the highest volume in the division.

Against Michel Pereira he attempted 29, landed 10, piled up 15:42 of control time in a 25-minute fight and finished with elbows in round five. Against Brendan Allen it was 10:22 of control. Against Roman Dolidze, 7:48 and the rear-naked choke in round four.

His path isn't one perfect entry, it's the 15th attempt, once the other guy has burned his legs and his lungs stopping the first 14. The caveat is February. Against Sean Strickland this same Hernandez attempted exactly one takedown in 12 minutes and got picked apart until the stoppage in round three.

If he does that again, none of the above happens. That's why this fight gets decided in the first 10 minutes, not the last.

Tale of the Tape

Current form

Level of competition

Three shared names, and the read cuts both ways. Roman Kopylov: Hernandez choked him out in round two, Rodrigues won a decision. JunYong Park: Hernandez took the anaconda in round two, Rodrigues knocked him out in round two.

Josh Fremd: Hernandez won a three-round decision at UFC 273, Rodrigues flattened him in 2:20 under the LFA banner. Each man finished what the other took to the cards.

The gap shows up in recent calibre: Hernandez's last five were Strickland, Dolidze, Brendan Allen, Michel Pereira and Kopylov, while Rodrigues faced an unranked Ferreira last time out. Both are former LFA champions who traveled similar roads, but Fluffy has been fighting a tier up.

The rankings cited here are the UFC's official ones as of August 2026, not where each opponent sat on fight night: on that basis Hernandez is 1W-1L against the top five, the win over No. 4 Brendan Allen and the loss to Strickland, who took the belt in May.

Stats

How they win and lose

Near-opposite profiles. Hernandez wins by choking people: nine of 15 wins by submission, five of them in the UFC, including rear-naked chokes on Kopylov and Dolidze. Rodrigues wins by putting people out: 12 of 19 by knockout, seven of them inside the opening round, four of those in the UFC.

One thing matters most for the method here: when Fluffy gets to impose his fight, he rarely needs the cards, with seven of his nine UFC wins ending early. The two exceptions, Fremd and Brendan Allen, were three-round fights with no fourth or fifth round for the grind to collect.

This is the number that reshapes the whole read. Rodrigues has never been submitted: zero submission losses in 25 pro fights, which tracks, since he's a black belt and an eight-time Brazilian national jiu-jitsu champion. His six defeats break down as four by strikes (67%) and two on the cards.

So the way to beat Robocop is to hurt him or outpoint him, never to choke him.

On the other side, Hernandez's sample is small and has to be read carefully: only three losses, but two came by TKO, Kevin Holland in 39 seconds back in 2020 and Strickland in round three in February, and he has never lost a decision in his career.

Beyond those three losses his record also carries a no contest, the 2018 Contender Series win over Jordan Wright that was later overturned: UFCStats and Sherdog list it, his UFC.com profile does not.

Cross the two profiles and you get this: Hernandez loses the way Rodrigues wins, and Rodrigues doesn't lose the way Hernandez usually wins. That's exactly why Fluffy's route here is attrition and top-position damage, not the choke the public will be betting.

Skills

• 1. Striking at RangeEdge: Rodrigues (2/5)

  Rodrigues lands 5.53 significant strikes per minute and is the bigger man in open space, where he starched Hermansson and Ferreira with one hand.

• 2. Striking in the PocketEven

  Both men want this range for opposite reasons: Rodrigues to plant his feet and swing, Hernandez to get to the body and rip out a takedown.

• 3. Knockout PowerEdge: Rodrigues (4/5)

  Twelve KOs in 19 wins and a 1.01 knockdown average per 15 minutes, against 0.11 for Hernandez. The biggest and most dangerous gap on the board.

• 4. Striking DefenseEdge: Hernandez (1/5)

  The percentages are a wash (51% to 50%), but Rodrigues absorbs 4.78 strikes per minute to Hernandez's 3.10.

• 5. Grappling & ClinchEdge: Hernandez (4/5)

  5.88 takedowns per 15 minutes, 15:42 of control against Pereira and nine career submissions, against a man who's never had to defend takedowns at volume.

• 6. Cardio (5 Rounds)Edge: Hernandez (3/5)

  Hernandez finished in round four and round five in main events. Rodrigues has been past the third once in his life and slowed down starting in round two before folding in the fourth.

Rodrigues wins any minute the two of them spend standing and separated, and he wins it big. Hernandez wins every other minute. Over five rounds, the math on how many minutes each kind of exchange is worth is what decides the night.

Full prediction

The thesis

The thesis is: Anthony Hernandez wins because he shoots 5.88 takedowns per 15 minutes against a man who has only had to defend 12 attempts across 13 UFC fights, because the one time Rodrigues went past round three he lost power and speed by round two and got stopped 21 seconds into round four while Hernandez banked 15:42 of control in a 25-minute fight and finished Pereira in the fifth, and because he's coming off six weeks training in Las Vegas with the champion who beat him in February, fighting an hour from his hometown.

The path is surviving the first five minutes without getting caught clean, walking the Brazilian to the fence and stacking top time from round two on, letting the attrition work until the elbows show up from the third round onward.

It breaks down if Hernandez repeats his Houston night, when he attempted a single takedown in 12 minutes and took the kickboxing match, because standing still he absorbs 3.10 strikes per minute behind 51% defense against a man who ends nights with one hand.

Conviction 7 because the thesis rests on five independent dimensions, not on a market read. Stats: 5.88 takedowns per 15 minutes against 12 attempts faced in 13 fights, with 68% and 75% takedown defense that don't mean the same thing because the samples behind them aren't comparable.

Style: Rodrigues' entire game needs space and planted feet, which is precisely what Fluffy's grappling takes away. Physical and cardio: the Brazilian has been past round three once in his life and came apart, while the American finished in the fourth and the fifth in main events.

Competition level: Hernandez's last five include the reigning champion, the No. 4 contender and Dolidze, while Rodrigues' most recent win came against an unranked opponent. Qualitative intel: six weeks with Strickland's Las Vegas camp, and his own line, I fight him every Tuesday, addresses the February mistake head on.

What keeps this from an 8 or 9 is that the load-bearing piece of the thesis, takedown volume, is exactly what went missing in his last fight, and that the underdog's route here is one punch, with seven of the Brazilian's 12 knockouts landing inside the opening round, which never leaves the equation.

What breaks the thesis

1. If round one ends without Hernandez having attempted at least two takedowns, it's the Houston night again and the thesis is already dead five minutes in.
2. If Rodrigues defends the early entries on his feet, without going down or spending time underneath, and his hands are still loose at the end of round one.
3. If Rodrigues comes out of round two at the same pace he had in round one, the attrition argument built on the Cannonier fight collapses and this becomes a five-round firefight.
4. If Hernandez gets the takedown and chooses to stand back up and trade instead of holding top position, he hands back the only ground where he's clearly better.

The underdog's path

Rodrigues uses his 6-foot-3 frame and his weight to defend the first entries standing, keeps the fight in the center of the cage and off the fence, and makes every sloppy attempt cost when Hernandez's head drops into the line. He doesn't need to win five rounds, he needs one instant inside the first 10 minutes while both men are still fresh. That's how it went against Jack Hermansson, one shot at 4:21 of round one, and against Brunno Ferreira at 1:47 of the first. If the clock passes 15 minutes with the fight standing, the underdog becomes the favorite on the cards, because he produces more volume.

• Defend the first two or three takedown attempts standing, without giving up the body or spending time on bottom
• Keep the fight in the center of the cage, where Hernandez's fence work doesn't function
• Land the back hand on the entry, when the opponent's head drops into the line
• Do it inside the first 10 minutes, before the fade that showed up against Cannonier returns