Nicknames are weird, and I say that as someone who has carried a multitude of monikers over the years, including my mother calling me “Eddie Spaghetti” when I was much younger. If you didn’t know why Anthony Hernandez carries the moniker “Fluffy,” you would think it was either completely off base given his non-cuddly demeanor inside the Octagon or one of those “call him the opposite” situations, like when a gargantuan human being is known as “Tiny.”
Carrying a little extra weight as a child is what earned Hernandez his nickname, and now, as he readies for a critical showdown with former champ Sean Strickland this weekend in the main event of UFC’s return to Houston, it has become his mononymous identifier — the only thing you need to say to describe the aggressive, tattooed NorCal native that has been running rampant through the 185-pound weight class for the last five years.