Joe Pyfer has seen enough of Nassourdine Imavov trailing Sean Strickland around, and he said so.
Asked about the run-in between the two middleweights, Pyfer told Tim Welch that “the whole antics stuff with Imavov following him around is a little bit ridiculous.” He gave Imavov partial credit for the hustle, then took it right back: “I get it. He’s trying to sell it, but it’s like, brother, he’s not afraid of you. He already beat you.” The clip circulated on X through Dovy Simu’s account, and Last Word On Sports framed it as Pyfer calling out the French contender.
The last line is the one that lands, because it’s true. In January 2023, at UFC Fight Night 217, Strickland stepped in on short notice for an injured Kelvin Gastelum, took the fight at light heavyweight, and beat Imavov by unanimous decision. Guys who take the fight anyway tend to keep that one in their back pocket forever.
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Imavov has been nearly perfect since. He’s 17-4 and sits No. 2 at middleweight in the Knockout Daily rankings, with wins over Roman Dolidze, Jared Cannonier, Brendan Allen, Israel Adesanya (TKO in Round 2, February 2025) and Caio Borralho (unanimous decision, September 6, 2025). That Borralho win is also his last fight, so he’s more than a year out of the cage and clearly looking for a way to make some noise.
Pyfer has his own reasons to talk. The Team Balance product is 16-3, ranked No. 8 by Knockout Daily, and coming off the biggest win of his career, a second-round TKO of Adesanya in the March 28 main event of UFC Fight Night 271 that paid him a $100,000 bonus. So both men have stopped Adesanya in Round 2, which is the kind of overlap matchmakers notice.
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Strickland, for his part, spent the week in Canada and stayed busy. He picked Mike Malott over Joaquin Buckley in a clip posted by Championship Rounds, and Dana White wondered aloud how he was allowed into the country at all: “If he can get in here, anybody can.”
Pyfer’s calendar complicates any Imavov idea. His fight with Bo Nickal was booked for UFC 335 on December 12, but Nickal announced it has been moved, and the two will instead headline a card in Cleveland in February. Pyfer was also supposed to fight Borralho at UFC 330 in August before a rib injury scrapped it.
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So Imavov will have to wait. Pyfer gets Nickal in Cleveland first, and if he wins there, he’ll have a much louder case for the guy he just mocked.
