Rodrigues carries his father's dream into second UFC Sacramento main event

Gregory Rodrigues will headline UFC Sacramento against Anthony Hernandez on 22 August, marking the second time the Brazilian middleweight has topped a UFC card — a milestone he traces directly back to his father’s unfulfilled ambition.

Speaking ahead of the bout, Rodrigues was candid about what reaching a UFC main event truly means to him. “I started very young in this journey through my father,” he said. “Like I always said, that was my father’s dream and then it became my dream and I made this dream become true. So yeah, that’s fantastic, and I’m excited. One more fight in the UFC, I’m in my second main event. Oh man, I’m just happy.”

Rodrigues admitted he had to consciously work to hold onto that gratitude rather than let the pressures of professional fighting erode it. “I just realized that the moments go fast and we can’t lose the time,” he said. “Sometimes we worry about something that doesn’t have value and we forget to see and be grateful and enjoy every moment we are living right now. So, I’m enjoying this, because I know where I come from.”

A blunt question from a friend was the catalyst for that shift in perspective. “A friend of mine asked me, ‘Gregory, if somebody gave you this opportunity like 10 years ago, how would you react?’” Rodrigues recalled. “I said, ‘Oh man, I would be like the happiest man on Earth.’ He said, ‘What changed? Why are you not happy right now?’ And I said, ‘That’s true, man.’”

The exchange clearly left a mark. Rodrigues, known inside the octagon as “Robocop”, now frames his career not as a burden of expectation but as the living proof of a generational dream — one that started with his father and has been carried, fight by fight, to the top of a UFC billing.