Anthony Hernandez got an up-close and personal look at the middleweight division’s new kingpin, and it didn’t take him long to decide he has what it takes to upend the throne.
Hernandez is just a week removed from an utterly dominant main event win over Roman Dolidze at UFC on ESPN 72. The performance he put on was so impressive in Las Vegas that he was in Chicago on Saturday for UFC 319, though not officially as a backup fighter for the middleweight title main event.
Still Hernandez (15-2 MMA, 9-2 UFC) was asked for his official thoughts on Khamzat Chimaev (15-0 MMA, 9-0 UFC) and his unanimous decision win over Dricus Du Plessis (23-3 MMA, 9-1 UFC) to take the title in the main event.
Chimaev, roughly a 3-1 favorite in the fight, landed 12 takedowns against the champ that led to a total of nearly 22 minutes of control time. And though the strikes he landed never were of major consequence to Du Plessis, he landed more than 500 total strikes, mostly short shots on the canvas, at nearly 93 percent total accuracy.
But Hernandez told ESPN he’s got the formula to make Chimaev’s reign one and done.
“Congratulations to him. It was a f*cking pretty boring fight – I’m not going to lie,” Hernandez said. “But call me for the (next title) fight. I can wrestle, I can do jiu-jitsu, I can stop all the sh*t, and I can shut him down. With my gas tank, I’ll drown him, man – I promise. I’ll make him f*cking work.
“So call me – keep me in mind, guys, and I think you’ll have a new f*cking Mexican-American champion.”
Hernandez has won eight straight fights. Six of them have been stoppages, including four for post-fight bonus awards. In the past 18 months, he has bonus-winning finishes of Roman Kopylov, Michel Pereira and Dolidze, plus a decision over Brendan Allen. The Pereira and Dolidze wins came in UFC main events.
Chimaev said earlier in UFC 319 fight week that if he won the belt, it would be likely he’d want to fight on the UFC’s return to Abu Dhabi in October.
