Rivalries: Jack Hermansson

Time appears to be of the essence for Jack Hermansson.

The Frontline Academy star will try to hold serve in the Ultimate Fighting Championship middleweight division when he locks horns with former King of the Cage titleholder Sean Strickland in the UFC Fight Night 200 main event on Saturday at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. Hermansson, 33, has alternated wins and losses in each of his past four outings. He last appeared at UFC Fight Night 188, where he took a three-round unanimous decision from Edmen Shahbazyan in their May 22 confrontation.

As Hermansson moves toward his headlining assignment opposite Strickland, a look at some of the rivalries that have helped shape his career to this point:

Scott Askham

“The Joker” made a successful Octagon debut when he captured a unanimous verdict over Askham in their UFC Fight Night 93 middleweight prelim on Sept. 3, 2016 at Barclaycard Arena in Hamburg, Germany. Hermansson swept the scorecards with 30-27, 30-27 and 29-28 marks from the judges. Askham simply failed to match the Swede’s aggression, as evidenced by the fact that he threw 70 fewer strikes in the 15-minute affair. Hermansson seized control after a closely contested first round, smothering the onetime British Association of Mixed Martial Arts champion with a punishing clinch. Close-quarters uppercuts routinely snapped back Askham’s head, and Hermansson paired those shoveling punches with slashing right hands to keep the Englishman on his heels.

Thiago Santos

The American Top Team standout disposed of Hermansson with punches in the first round of their UFC Fight Night 119 middleweight showcase on Oct. 28, 2017 at Ibirapuera Gymnasium in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Santos brought it to an emphatic close 4:59 into Round 1, becoming the first man to stop the Swede with strikes. The match always had a feeling of inevitability about it. Santos chewed up his counterpart with destructive body kicks and slashing punches upstairs. Late in the first round, he took to the air, connected with a flying body kick and drove the backpedaling Hermansson to the mat with a pair of left uppercuts. Rapid-fire ground-and-pound followed, prompting referee Jerin Valel to act with just one second left on the clock.

Ronaldo Souza

The two-time Abu Dhabi Combat Club Submission Wrestling World Championships gold medalist played the role of unwitting steppingstone in a unanimous decision defeat to the surging Hermansson in the UFC Fight Night 150 main event on April 27, 2019 at the BB&T Center in Sunrise, Florida. All three cageside judges scored it for Hermansson: 49-46, 48-47 and 48-47. A short-notice substitution for Yoel Romero, “The Joker” outstruck Souza by surprisingly wide margins—256-120 in total strikes, 148-90 in significant strikes—and more than held his own on the ground with the grappling savant, as he recorded three takedowns and accounted for the only guard pass and submission attempt of the 25-minute encounter. It was easily Hermansson’s most significant victory to date and pushed him into an entirely new tax bracket in terms of middleweight contention.

Jared Cannonier

“The Killa Gorilla” announced his arrival as a serious player in the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s middleweight division when he sliced through Hermansson with punches in the second round of their UFC Fight Night 160 headliner on Sept. 28, 2019 at Royal Arena in Copenhagen, Denmark. Cannonier drew the curtain 27 seconds into Round 2. In the weeks preceding the event, Hermansson was the talk of the division. The former Cage Warriors Fighting Championship titleholder had pieced together a four-fight winning streak against increasingly stiff opposition: Thales Leites, Gerald Meerschaert, David Branch and the aforementioned Souza. None of it mattered to Cannonier. The surging MMA Lab product denied a takedown from Hermansson at the start of the second round, clipped him with an uppercut and overwhelmed him with follow-up punches to force the stoppage.

Marvin Vettori

Laser-guided left hands, stellar takedown defense and a willingness to go to the end of his rope carried the ascendant Rafael Cordeiro protégé to a unanimous decision over Hermansson in the UFC on ESPN 19 main event on Dec. 5, 2020 at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. A short-notice substitution for Kevin Holland, Vettori swept the scorecards with 49-46, 49-46 and 49-45 marks from the judges. Hermansson ran into early difficulty, as “The Italian Dream” dropped him with a left hand in the first round and pursued a finish on the ground with punches and elbows before his bid for a guillotine choke failed. Drawing on his guile and experience, the Swede battled back in the second and third rounds by moving forward and uncorking combinations. A pep talk from Cordeiro after Round 3 appeared to breathe new life into Vettori. The Kings MMA product fought through fatigue across the final 10 minutes, tearing into Hermansson with one left cross after another to punctuate the most important win of his 21-fight career.