MMAJunkie<\/a>).<\/p>\n\u201cI was very surprised,\u201d Imavov said. \u201cI wasn\u2019t expecting that. I don\u2019t know what happened with Khamzat, but he looked different. But anyway, Strickland won. I will shut him down.\u201d<\/p>\n
During the UFC 328 post-fight show on Paramount+, Strickland said he has no problem putting his gold at stake against Imavov.<\/p>\n
\u201cI truly believe in UFC rankings,\u201d he added. \u201cI think they [expletive] matter. I hate when guys jump it. So if that\u2019s who the UFC [wants], if that\u2019s the rankings, that\u2019s who it is. Let\u2019s go.\u201d<\/p>\n
Strickland did note that he wants to take time off to heal following a bloody five-round affair with Chimaev. Strickland suffered a busted nose during the fight, and he revealed that he separated his shoulder four days prior to turning in another vintage performance.<\/p>\n
Many felt that Imavov was the most deserving contender prior to Strickland\u2019s second-round TKO finish over Anthony Hernandez at UFC Houston back in February. Strickland\u2019s war of words with Chimaev led to their title fight being booked for Newark.<\/p>\n
Do you think Nassourdine Imavov will ultimately be the next UFC middleweight title challenger, or will someone else jump the line? Share your thoughts in the comments below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nassourdine Imavov didn\u2019t expect Sean Strickland to pull off the upset over Khamzat Chimaev. Strickland entered the Prudential…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":664496,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,785,85],"class_list":["post-664495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664495","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=664495"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664495\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/664496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=664495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=664495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=664495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}