A pair of top 10 UFC middleweights will headline the promotion’s first event in February 2022.
ESPN was first to report the news that No. 6 ranked middleweight Jack Hermansson will fight No. 7 Sean Strickland in the main event of the February 5 Fight Night event. Hermansson would subsequently confirm the booking on his Instagram story.
Hermansson (22-6) only fought once in 2021. “The Joker” defeated Edmen Shahbazyan via unanimous decision at UFC Fight Night: Font vs. Garbrandt, putting him back in the win column. Prior to that, he had lost to Marvin Vettori in his second UFC main event.
Strickland (24-3) has been on absolute fire since returning from his horrible motorcycle accident, winning four straight. Most recently, he headlined his first UFC main event against Uriah Hall, defeating him via unanimous decision, climbing into the top 10 of the division. He defeated Krzysztof Jotko in May, and last year, he was the first man to defeat Brendan Allen inside the octagon. Stickland was scheduled to welcome Luke Rockhold back to the UFC at UFC 268; however, an injury forced Rockhold out of the fight.
No location, venue, or broadcast plan has been officially announced for the February 5 event.
The UFC’s February 5 Fight Night card currently breaks down as follows:
- Sean Strickland vs. Jack Hermansson
- Punahele Soriano vs. Nick Maximov
- Bryan Battle vs. Tresean Gore
- Marc-André Barriault vs. Chidi Njokuani
- Jason Witt vs. Phil Rowe
- Miles Johns vs. John Castaneda
- Steven Peterson vs. Julian Erosa
- Ian Heinisch vs. Sam Alvey
- Michael Trizano vs. Hakeem Dawodu
- Denys Bondar vs. Malcolm Gordon
- Danilo Marques vs. Jailton Almeida
- Shavkat Rakhmonov vs. Carlston Harris
