Gregory Rodrigues is not letting Anthony Hernandez rewrite the UFC Sacramento main event into a courtroom drama. After Rodrigues beat Hernandez by unanimous decision in Saturday’s five-round middleweight war, Hernandez claimed glove grabbing helped swing the fight. Rodrigues has now answered, and he basically told everyone to check the tape instead of the complaint box.
The response keeps a hot post-fight lane alive after Rodrigues already had the biggest win of his UFC run. He outlasted Hernandez in the UFC Sacramento main event, then watched the fallout move from rankings talk to foul talk in about five minutes. That’s MMA. One day you are chopping a guy’s legs down, the next day everyone is arguing about fingers in gloves.
Rodrigues addressed the accusation in a clip shared from The Ariel Helwani Show, saying Hernandez can say what he wants, but the result was built on damage, defense, and pace.
Gregory Rodrigues responds to Fluffy Hernandez accusing him of cheating:
“He can say whatever he wants. The fact is that I beat him with the leg kicks. I punched him. He didn’t take me down. He didn’t do anything. He put a pressure that was good, but I didn’t cheat him, he knows that.
If that was clear, Herb Dean would probably say something or everyone’s gonna see it on the TV. Sometimes, involuntary, my hands grab his gloves, but it was nothing that would change the result of the fight.”
— Ariel Helwani (@arielhelwani) August 24, 2026
Rodrigues opened by rejecting Hernandez’s version of the result.
“He can say whatever he wants.”
He then listed the work he believed decided the scorecards.
“The fact is that I beat him with the leg kicks. I punched him. He didn’t take me down. He didn’t do anything. He put a pressure that was good, but I didn’t cheat him. He knows that.”
Rodrigues said a clear foul would have been caught either by referee Herb Dean or by the broadcast cameras.
“If that was clear, Herb Dean would probably say something, or everyone’s gonna see it on the TV.”
He acknowledged that incidental contact with the gloves may have happened, but denied that it affected the result.
“Sometimes, involuntary, my hands grab his gloves, but it was nothing that would change the result of the fight.”
Rodrigues Says The Result Was Won On Damage, Not A Foul
The key line is Rodrigues admitting that his hands may have grabbed the gloves involuntarily at times while rejecting the idea that it changed the fight. That’s a very different lane than pretending contact never happened. In a five-round clinch-heavy fight with both men exhausted and hand-fighting for every inch, accidental grabs can happen. Rodrigues’ argument is that nothing about it created the scoreboard.
That is also why the referee piece matters. Herb Dean was in the cage for all 25 minutes, and Rodrigues pointed out that a clear fight-changing foul should have been spotted live or on broadcast. Hernandez, meanwhile, left the night frustrated after a brutal shift in momentum. Rodrigues’ leg kicks were nasty enough that the fight turned into a survival test, and the medical fallout later included both men among the notable UFC Sacramento medical suspensions.
The win pushed Rodrigues to 20-6 overall and 11-3 in the UFC, while Hernandez fell to 15-4 with one no contest. It was also the kind of result that changes a middleweight’s negotiating posture overnight. Rodrigues did not just scrape by a home-area headliner. He won a five-rounder, cashed a bonus, and immediately started chasing names near the top of the division.
That is why this little glove-grab storm has legs. If the win stands in public perception, Rodrigues can keep selling himself as a fresh problem at 185 pounds. If Hernandez’s complaint catches fire, every future matchup discussion gets a little asterisk slapped on it. Rodrigues is trying to kill that before it grows teeth.
The official result is still Rodrigues by unanimous decision, and the Brazilian is moving like a man who wants bigger problems than a replay debate. He already called for Dricus du Plessis after the fight, and whether the UFC gives him that kind of jump or something just below it, the middleweight division has to deal with the fact that Robocop’s UFC Sacramento callout now comes with a whole lot more leverage.
