Nassourdine Imavov’s mother disapproves of Khamzat Chimaev fight: ‘It shouldn’t be between two brothers’
Nassourdine Imavov is a front-runner to fight Khamzat Chimaev for the UFC middleweight title, but the match-up is not one that either man seems excited about.
That’s because Imavov and Chimaev are both from the Caucasus, and that makes them brothers … at least in the eyes of Imavov’s mother, who disapproves of the fight.
“Here it’s certainly hard to understand, but in the Caucasus Mountains it’s going to make some noise,” Imavov told RMC Sport Combat in French. “There was an aunt of mine, she called my mother, she doesn’t know anything about MMA. But she said it’s not a fight to be had, it shouldn’t be between two brothers. That’s why it’s complicated for us. But at the same time, we don’t have a choice.”
“We know each other well,” he continued. “Khamzat is a good guy, he helped me quite a bit in the fight against [Brendan] Allen. He’s someone I appreciate. We know that next it’s going to be me. I think I’ve done enough. We’ve talked to the UFC, they told us they wanted to do the fight in February.”
Chimaev has expressed similar feelings about fighting Imavov.
“He’s a good guy, I know him, he knows me,” he told ESPN MMA. “If you ask me, I don’t want to fight this guy because we know each other. He’s Muslim, and he’s from Dagestan. You know how Dagestan and Chechnyan people, it’s a lot of drama, internet, and all these s–t things.”
“But if the UFC wants it, I’m never going to say no. If the guy wants it, I told his manager as well, if Nassourdine wants, I will be open to it. If he says he can wait until I move up, I’m not going to say no. I want to fight this guy. For me, it doesn’t matter. Whatever he decides, the UFC decides, we’ll see.”
It will be hard for February to be the date considering the UFC already has five events that month booked up. Ramadan also runs from February 17th to March 19th, so you can forget about anything until April. So the UFC and its middleweights will have some time to sort out how they want to do things. Will Chimaev move up to light heavyweight as he’s teased, or stick around and fight a brother? Whatever happens, it won’t happen for a while.
