Nassourdine Imavov knows he’ll be the underdog if he fights Khamzat Chimaev. If that does turn out to be the case, it’s exactly the kind of situation he likes to be in.
Following a five-round decision win over Caio Borralho in Saturday’s UFC Paris main event, Imavov appeared on the ESPN post-fight show where he said he welcomed the odds being against him should he be granted the chance to challenge
Chimaev for the middleweight title.
“It fits me very well. I like to be the underdog,” Imavov said. “When I’m the underdog, I do the best performance.”
Imavov isn’t guaranteed a championship opportunity, with fellow contenders Reinier de Ridder and Anthony Hernandez set to square off at UFC Vancouver on Oct. 18, and longtime Chimaev rival Paulo Costa also waiting in the wings (and rumored to be facing Shara Magomedov at UFC Qatar). But he’s prepared to get the call to be Chimaev’s first title defense after the undefeated Chechnyan took the belt from Dricus du Plessis this past August.
No one has been able to stop Chimaev’s relentless wrestling, but Imavov believes in his own abilities. After all, he’s heard this song before.
“People said that against [Israel] Adesanya, he was the best striker in the world and that I couldn’t fight with him, but I knocked him out on the feet,” Imavov said at the evening’s post-fight press conference. “This guy Caio, I didn’t have to fight against him, but I did it. He was coming from a 10-year run of victories, 16 victories and seven victories in the UFC. I fought him, I won every round, and once again I proved that I’m the best. For me, there is no discussion that I’m [not] going to fight for the belt.”
Not only did Imavov hand Borralho his first UFC loss, he did so dealing with a lingering injury. Imavov was asked how banged up he was coming out of the fight and he admitted he had to adjust his winning performance on the fly.
“It happened during the fight, but I had the injury for 10 days or something like that,” Imavov said. “It was bothering me more and more during the rounds and what happened is my style, especially against someone like Caio, you need to be able to move fast in order to catch him and I couldn’t do that so I had to stay in the same place and work a little bit more on my slipping abilities in order to keep winning the boxing exchanges.”
