Sean Strickland is the UFC’s main character of the week, after his string of public messages revealing his dissatisfaction with life as the middleweight champion. Strickland has told us about how much his pay sucks and that his heart just isn’t in MMA anymore. He’s also told us that he’d rather switch over to boxing, to play around with Jake Paul.
While Strickland muses about his future in the sport, Nassourdine Imavov has been seething on the sidelines. Imavov is the clear number one contender in the division, but a fight with Strickland has seemed frustratingly far off for the Frenchman.
That frustration boiled over this week as Imavov and some flunkies ambushed Strickland at the UFC Performance Institute in Las Vegas. Imavov asked Strickland why he hadn’t signed a bout agreement and also offered to give him money to fight him. Strickland shrugged all that off on his way out the door.
Later, on Instagram, Strickland called the whole thing ‘cringe’.
You know who didn’t think it was cringe? Daniel Cormier.
On his YouTube channel, Cormier lauded Imavov’s approach.
“The UFC PI is a great tool for athletes of the UFC,” Cormier said. “The UFC PI is also a danger zone for certain athletes or most athletes honestly, because the ability come across someone you’re going to fight is very present almost every single day.”
Cormier then said that he chose not to train at the PI, because he didn’t want to end up in confrontations like this one. Of the confrontation, though, Cormier thought Imavov not only did the right thing, but also the thing he needed to do to get his title shot.
“Nassourdine Imavov needs Sean Strickland,” he said. “And not only for the championship. Nassourdine Imavov needs Sean Strickland because you need someone to beat to become champion to really legitimize you and help with your star appeal. A win over Sean Strickland would do that for Imavov.”
Cormier also said that Imavov’s move might give him the upper-hand in the court of public opinion.
“So Sean almost walking away and not really throwing fuel on that fire that’s seeming like it’s growing is actually smart because he’s kind of no-selling him.,” Cormier said. ‘But to the general public, to the fan, the general eye, it looks like Strickland is almost avoiding the fight.”
“I know Sean Strickland is not afraid of anyone,” Cormier clarified. “But to the general public, when they see that video and they see Strickland walking away, they will interpret that he does not want to fight Nassourdine Imavov. I will tell you right now, if you step in the Octagon with Khamzat Chimaev, you will fight anyone.”
Cormier continued to praise Imavov’s move to make headlines (which obviously worked) and also connected it to what Strickland had done previously.
“I also head someone telling them, ‘do you think this helps you?’ … Guess what? It does,” Cormier claimed. “It actually does help. The reason Sean Strickland got that title fight after beating Fluffy Hernandez in Houston is because he attacked the champion. He went directly at Khamzat Chimaev, said some disparaging things about him. Talked about his religion, his personality and everything else to make everybody pay attention. … That’s what Imavov is doing. He’s only following the game plan that was laid out in front of him by Sean Strickland that ultimately paid dividends to him becoming the champion.”
It’s a stretch to say that Imavov was intentionally replicating Strickland in this moment. Imavov was, instead, just doing what we’ve seen fighters do for years when they want to force through a bout or get a psychological edge on their opponent.
Also, DC might need to be reminded of how Strickland and Chimaev embraced each other after their fight at UFC 328 in May and pretty much admitted that all their talk was just to make and sell the fight.
Along with talking about the PI incident, Cormier did touch on Strickland’s concerns over fighter pay. The former champ turned in-house broadcaster gently stepped around the situation, while making it clear that he would hate to see a great fighter, and popular personality, like Strickland leave his organization.
Cormier went on to say that the Strickland vs. Imavov match-up, a rematch of a fight Strickland won three years ago, is suddenly more exciting — to him, anyway.
Cormier is right that this incident has caused some buzz around Imavov. And this might be the first time he’s ever had buzz around him. Whether that means he’ll get to fight Strickland, though, that seems pretty far out of his hands.