Middleweight Nassourdine Imavov outlasted Caio Borralho in the main event of UFC Fight Night in Paris, France, Saturday afternoon, as he earned a unanimous decision — 50-45, 49-46, 49-46.<\/p>\n
The fight was one-sided, with Imavov (20-4 MMA) controlling the distance for the fight’s duration with clean boxing and pressure volume, not letting Borralho (17-2 MMA) find openings as he entered the fight having finished 62 percent of his wins by KO\/TKO or submission. Imanov, who laid claim to the division’s No. 2 ranking, was hard on himself about not finishing Borralho as he had planned.<\/p>\n
Despite not earning a stoppage victory, he had one message for UFC middleweight champion Khamzat Chimaev (15-0 MMA).<\/p>\n
“I am next,” Imavov said as the crowd erupted during his post-fight speech.<\/p>\n
The loss for the No.7-ranked Borralho marked his first inside the UFC, acknowledging Imavov as one of his toughest opponents yet.<\/p>\n
“Thank you, Nassourdine, for the respect,” Borralho said. “Thank you so much…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’t 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’s what you guys saw: a great war.”<\/p>\n
In the co-headliner, lightweight Benoit Saint Denis secured a rear-naked choke over Mauricio Ruffy at 2:56 of the second round. Saint Denis (15-3 MMA) got a large pop from the hometown crowd, as he became the first fighter to submit Ruffy (12-2 MMA) in his career. Saint Denis said after the fight he wants to remain active this year, even as a possible late replacement at UFC 322 in November at Madison Square Garden in New York if a fight fails to materialize.<\/p>\n
Ruffy had not lost since Nov. 2019, as current UFC prospect Manoel Souza (13-1 MMA) knocked him out when both were still early in their careers. At present, the loss to Saint Denis snapped a seven-fight winning streak.<\/p>\n
Light heavyweight Modestas Bukauskas delivered a thunderous elbow in Paul Craig’s guard to earn a last-second Round 1 TKO win as the horn sounded. Bukauskas (18-6 MMA) has now won four fights in a row, sending the UFC veteran, Craig (17-10-1 MMA), into retirement after four losses in his last five fights.<\/p>\n
Craig, 37, was gracious in defeat, in front of a sold-out Accor Arena.<\/p>\n
“I’m old, thank you for the memories,” Craig said following the loss.<\/p>\n
Lightweight Mason Jones railed to earn a second-round TKO at 3:18 over Bolaji Oki by utilizing his ground-and-pound. Oki (10-3 MMA) nearly secured a finish of his own before becoming noticeably tired, opening an opportunity for the finish for Jones. Jones (17-2) clarified in his post-fight interview that nothing Oki threw his way bothered him, but it was a fight he says he can learn a lot from.<\/p>\n
In a back-and-forth affair, lightweight-turned-welterweight Axel Sola caught Rhys McKee with a body shot to secure a third-round TKO win at 2:02. Sola (11-0-1 MMA) is now 3-0 this year, as he has finished six of his last seven fights. Meanwhile, McKee (14-7-1 MMA) fell to 1-5 in the promotion, as he was attempting to win back-to-back fights for the first time since April 2023.<\/p>\n
The UFC Paris main card kicked off with featherweight William Gomis winning his 13th fight in his last 14 outings by unanimous decision against Robert Ruchala, taking the cards 30-27, 29-28, 29-28. Gomis (15-3 MMA) used his wrestling and several minutes of control time to secure the win, as Ruchala (11-3 MMA) was making his promotional debut.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Middleweight Nassourdine Imavov outlasted Caio Borralho in the main event of UFC Fight Night in Paris, France, Saturday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":125958,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,638,82],"class_list":["post-125957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125957"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125957\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}