Alexander Hernandez snaps two-fight skid, defeats Jim Miller at UFC Vegas 69
The Ultimate Fighting Championship returns to us tonight, February 18, 2023, for UFC Vegas 69, going down live from the UFC Apex in Enterprise, Nevada.
Headlining the event is a women’s flyweight bout between no. 3 ranked former strawweight champion Jessica Andrade (24-9) and no. 10 ranked 23-year-old prodigy Erin Blanchfield (10-1).
Co-headlining the event is a light-heavyweight affair between Jordan Wright (12-4) and The Ultimate Fighter 30 finalist Zac Pauga (5-1).
Opening up the main card tonight was a lightweight showdown between the winningest fighter in UFC history Jim Miller (35-16) and Alexander Hernandez (13-6).
Miller has had a bit of a career resurgence as of late, winning his last three-straight fights coming into tonight’s appearance, securing all three victories via finish. Hernandez on the other hand had hit a bit of a rough patch lately.
After KO’ing current no. 4 ranked Beneil Dariush in his UFC debut, Hernandez then defeated 2022 PFL lightweight champion Olivier Aubin-Mercier in his sophomore effort with the promotion.
However, since then, Hernandez had gone 3-5 over his last eight appearances going into tonight’s outing.
Continue reading to see how this lightweight encounter went down:
Official Result: Alexander Hernandez def. Jim Miller via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 29-28)
Miller lands a nice inside leg kick early on and finds his range with his left hand not long thereafter. He follows one of those left hands up with a beautiful left head kick that lands flush, though Hernandez remains unfazed.
Hernandez is being pushed backward through much of round one, though he does begin to look more comfortable in there, finding the range with his body and leg kicks through the second half of it.
Hernandez is looking sharper and sharper as the fight goes on, as he picked Miller apart throughout round two.
This is good to see out of Hernandez, who’s been known to fade in the past, being stopped in the second round in four of his five promotional defeats.
These two go to war in the final five minutes.
Miller continues to batter Hernandez’ leg and cracks him good with a heavy boxing combination early on in the round. Hernandez stays composed however and gets out of danger to continue using his own striking effectively.
Miller ends up taking Hernandez’ back in a scramble with 45 seconds left in the fight and nearly sinks in a rear naked choke for the late finish. It wasn’t quite under the chin, but it was about as close as it could get without it being under.
But Hernandez is able to escape the back mount and spin into Miller’s guard, where he ends the fight reigning down heavy punches until the final bell.
Alexander Hernandez looked great tonight; he seems to have fixed some of the issues we’ve seen him have in the past. It isn’t quite the biggest win of his career, but this victory kept him from a three-fight losing streak, and it is his biggest win in five years.
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