Alexander Hernandez Details FBI Questioning

Alexander Hernandez has given a detailed account of the FBI questioning that preceded the cancellation of his planned UFC 324 fight with Michael Johnson. Hernandez said the episode began on the weigh-in day, after he completed official weigh-ins and ceremonial duties. He was being taken toward a routine fighter meeting when he was told that UFC chief business officer Hunter Campbell wanted to speak with him. Instead, Hernandez said he entered a room where two FBI agents were waiting.

The lightweight said he had been caught completely off guard and did not initially understand why he had been called aside. Hernandez recalled that he had not slept before weigh-ins, saying fighters often do not sleep the night before and that he had been awake for roughly 36 hours. The agents, according to Hernandez, told him they knew what he had been doing and what he was going to do. Hernandez said he eventually understood that they believed he intended to throw the Johnson fight. The bout had been scheduled for UFC 324 in January before it was scratched amid suspicious betting patterns and reports of unusual betting-line movement.

Hernandez recounts the UFC 324 meeting

Hernandez said Campbell was initially in the room but left before the conversation with the agents continued, telling him he could not be present for what was about to happen. Hernandez described the exchange as an interrogation focused on the possibility that he would intentionally lose. He disputed the premise, pointing to the opportunity he believed the fight represented against Johnson. Hernandez said both fighters were making good money and had plenty to gain from the matchup, even though they had been placed lower on what he described as a stacked card. He also said he was in the best position he had been in to pursue an important win. The account offers a clearer view of why the cancellation became so unsettling for Hernandez: it was not simply a late change to a booking, but an allegation he said arrived without warning during the final pre-fight proceedings.

The questioning did not end with an immediate resolution for Hernandez. He said the FBI continued to press him and described him as low-hanging fruit, a characterization he rejected. Hernandez said the agents told him it was the last time they could save him. Campbell later made the call to remove the fight, with Hernandez recalling that Campbell warned the consequences from the judicial world would be severe if Hernandez lost. Hernandez said his concern was not the agents themselves, but the possibility that the situation would cause the UFC to view him as a liability and cut him. He described the following six weeks as shaky. The UFC initially helped provide a defense attorney, Hernandez said, and that attorney spoke with the FBI without charging him.

A disrupted fight, then a return to action

Hernandez was initially advised by his lawyer not to make a public statement. He said he chose to speak after Johnson fought. The Johnson matchup did not become the end of either fighter’s UFC run: both have competed in the promotion since the controversy, according to the account. Hernandez also returned to action earlier this year, when he lost to Rafa Garcia. His next confirmed assignment is Rafael dos Anjos at UFC 332 this Saturday. That scheduled bout places the focus back on competition after a period in which Hernandez said the cancelled Johnson fight left him worried about the larger consequences of the betting-related suspicion.

• Hernandez said the FBI encounter began after official weigh-ins and ceremonial duties, when he expected to attend a standard fighter meeting.
• Hernandez said the UFC 324 fight was later pulled, and he described six uncertain weeks before returning to UFC competition.

Hernandez’s account centers on a striking pre-fight interruption: a scheduled January matchup was replaced by questioning he said was based on suspicion that he would throw the contest. While the Johnson bout was scratched, Hernandez has since fought again and now has a confirmed UFC 332 meeting with dos Anjos. The upcoming fight gives Hernandez a competitive next step following an episode he described as both unexpected and personally destabilizing.