Anthony Hernandez extends his streak by stopping Roman Kopylov at UFC 298

The Ultimate Fighting Championship returns to us tonight, February 17, 2024, for UFC 298, going down live from the Honda Center in Anaheim, California.

Headlining the event is a featherweight championship bout between Alexander Volkanovski (26-3) and no. 3 ranked Ilia Topuria (14-0).

Co-headlining the event is a 185 lb encounter between no. 3 ranked former UFC middleweight champion Robert Whittaker (24-7) and no. 6 ranked former title challenger Paulo Costa (14-2).

Opening up the main card tonight was also a middleweight bout, this one coming between no. 15 ranked former LFA middleweight champion Anthony Hernandez (13-2) and former FNG middleweight champion Roman Kopylov (12-3).

Hernandez and Kopylov both came into tonight’s bout on four-fight win streaks, Hernandez having finished three of his opponents, and Kopylov having finished all four via knockout.

Continue reading to see how this middleweight affair went down:

Official Result: Anthony Hernandez def. Roman Kopylov via submission (rear naked choke) at 3:23 of round two

Kopylov’s striking looks incredibly sharp early, as it always does. He did a great job of landing his straight punches and round kicks to the body early on, and also did a great job of stuffing Hernandez’ takedown attempts. Hernandez did however have him pressed into the fence for the second half of the opening round.

Kopylov’s striking also looks great to begin round two, landing heavy shots as Hernandez is coming in. He gets off balance however and ends up on his back, where he soon thereafter gets his back taken. He defends Hernandez’ rear naked choke attempts pretty well, but eventually after Hernandez readjusts, he’s forced to tap.

Anthony Hernandez achieves his fifth-straight victory tonight at UFC 298. This kid has gotten seriously good over the last several years. He defeated Brendan Allen in a five-round fight for the LFA middleweight title back in 2018, he submitted six-time BJJ world champion Rodolfo Vieira in 2021, and he just stopped a real force in Roman Kopylov.

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Brady Ordway

I became a fan of combat sports when I was 12 years old. I was scrolling through the channels and landed upon Versus, where WEC was televised. Urijah Faber fought Jens Pulver for the second time that night. That's the first fight I ever saw, and I was immediately hooked. So eventually, I began covering the sport in the fourth quarter of 2018, and have since started writing about animals as well. If you'd like to see those pieces, be sure to check out learnaboutnature.com!

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