{"id":124727,"date":"2025-09-07T04:24:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-07T04:24:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/124727\/"},"modified":"2025-09-07T04:24:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-07T04:24:07","slug":"imavov-calls-for-chimaevs-title-after-ufc-main-event-win-over-borralho-mixed-martial-arts-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/124727\/","title":{"rendered":"Imavov calls for Chimaev\u2019s title after UFC main event win over Borralho | Mixed Martial Arts News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"article__subhead\">Nassourdine Imavov beats Caio Borralho in Paris, then issued a title challenge to UFC middleweight champion Khamzat Chimaev.<\/p>\n<p>Published On 7 Sep 20257 Sep 2025<\/p>\n<p>Nassourdine Imavov outlasted Caio Borralho in the main event of UFC Fight Night in France, earning a unanimous decision and consolidating his claim as a potential title challenger to middleweight champion Khamzat Chimaev.<\/p>\n<p>Imavov, fighting in front of his home crowd at Accor Arena in Paris, secured a fifth straight UFC victory, with the three judges delivering a clear win for the 84kg (185-pound) fighter: 50-45, 49-46, 49-46.<\/p>\n<p>Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list<\/p>\n<p>The Saturday night bout was one-sided, with Imavov (20-4 MMA) controlling the distance for the fight\u2019s duration with clean boxing and pressure volume, not allowing Borralho (17-2 MMA) to find openings, as he entered the contest with an imposing 62 percent of his wins by either KO\/TKO or submission.<\/p>\n<p>Imanov, who laid claim to the UFC middleweight division\u2019s No 2 ranking, was hard on himself about not finishing Borralho as he had planned.<\/p>\n<p>Despite not earning a stoppage victory, he had one message for Chimaev (15-0 MMA).<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am next,\u201d Imavov said as the crowd erupted during his post-fight speech. \u201c[Borralho] was unbeaten for 10 years. I just beat him, and beat him with style as well. I need to be the next one [to fight for the UFC middleweight title].\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The loss for the No 7-ranked Borralho marked his first inside the UFC. After the fight, he acknowledged Imavov as one of the toughest opponents of his career.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThank you, Nassourdine, for the respect,\u201d Borralho said. \u201cThank you so much\u2026 I think Nassourdine was the better man today. He was very fast, as I was expecting. He did very good in the fight. I couldn\u2019t really adapt [my strategy] that much. I wanted to make this fight entertaining for the fans and the UFC. So, I tried to strike with one of the best strikers in the world, and that\u2019s what you guys saw: a great war.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In the co-headline fight, lightweight Benoit Saint Denis secured a rear-naked choke over Mauricio Ruffy at 2:56 of the second round.<\/p>\n<p>Saint Denis (15-3 MMA) got a large lift from the hometown crowd and became the first fighter to submit Ruffy (12-2 MMA) in his career.<\/p>\n<p>Ruffy\u2019s loss to Saint Denis snapped a seven-fight winning streak dating back to November 2019.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-arc-image-770 wp-image-3930159\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/2025-09-06T230312Z_2113356577_MT1USATODAY27021091_RTRMADP_3_MMA-UFC-FIGHT-NIGHT-PARIS-IMAVOV-VS-BORR.jpeg\" alt=\"Nassourdine Imavov reacts.\" fetchpriority=\"low\"\/>The No 2-ranked Imavov called for his next bout to be a title showdown against middleweight champion Khamzat Chimaev [Per Haljestam\/Imagn Images via Reuters]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nassourdine Imavov beats Caio Borralho in Paris, then issued a title challenge to UFC middleweight champion Khamzat Chimaev.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":124728,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,2057,786,2592,10280,785,44,588,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-124727","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-europe","11":"tag-fighting","12":"tag-france","13":"tag-mixed-martial-arts","14":"tag-mma","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-sport","17":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124727\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}