Rafael Dos Anjos vs Alexander Hernandez Preview & Prediction — UFC 332

This one is logged as an official-card PASS on the desk's board, but the read is clear enough to put a name on it in public: Hernandez. Dos Anjos still owns the louder resume and the clearer path to a decision if he gets this fight to the fence, but his most recent tape keeps writing the same sentence, and it says he gets hit clean by standing strikers who time his entries.

Rafael Dos Anjos

Dos Anjos is still a fence-clinch and top-control problem when he gets there. His last two decision wins carried 802 seconds and 855 seconds of control time, and a 2022 finish came by rear-naked choke after 396 seconds of top position. That is a real route to a scorecard against most of the roster.

But at 41.9, that control game has started to fade instead of travel. In his last two decision losses, he was the fighter being controlled, not the one controlling: Gamrot held him for 421 seconds and Luque for 721. And the finishes are the louder alarm. Geoff Neal stopped him in round one in 2024, out-landing him 18 of 30 to 4 of 13 with a knockdown, and Fiziev finished him in 2022 as Dos Anjos stepped in with no head movement off the centerline. Add a three-fight losing streak, only two bouts in three years, and a layoff of almost two years since that round-one knockout, and the grind he needs is no longer a given.

Alexander Hernandez

Hernandez's own hole is well documented: grappling-control opponents have repeatedly solved him. Damon Jackson took a split decision off 378 seconds of control, Rafa Garcia went 4 of 7 on takedowns with 110 seconds of control in a unanimous decision six months ago, and Moicano controlled him for 103 seconds before finishing him by rear-naked choke. If Dos Anjos gets this to the fence and stays there, that history repeats.

What keeps Hernandez live is the standing exchange. His finishing weapon is the counter he lands on opponents who come forward without protecting their chin, delivered standing, in open space, during the entry, which is the exact window where Fiziev caught Dos Anjos stepping in flat-footed. Hernandez is active and has two finishes by knockout in 2025, against an opponent who has fought twice in three years and hasn't finished anyone since before that layoff.

How the fight plays out

The fight plays out as a race between two habits. Dos Anjos wants to close distance, get a hand on the fence, and grind out the kind of control time that has carried his recent wins. Hernandez wants to make him pay for the walk-in before any of that control ever starts. The tape says Dos Anjos still walks in the way Fiziev punished, and Hernandez's counter is built for exactly that entry.

There is a live caveat: if this does go to the scorecards in the United States, there is a modest documented home-judging lean worth flagging. But that only matters if Hernandez lets it get there. The cleaner path is the one that ends it before the cards matter, and his finishing instincts on the counter are sharper right now than Dos Anjos's chin is durable. The desk calls this a no-play, but the side it leans is Hernandez.

The verdict

The pick is Hernandez. Dos Anjos's path still runs through the fence, but his own control numbers have gone from something he imposes to something imposed on him, and the finishes keep coming from the same leaking entry. Hernandez's counter on forward pressure lines up with exactly that habit, and that is the fight the desk is backing, even without a dollar on it.