Nassourdine Imavov Shows Up at the Gym and Tells Sean Strickland to Sign
Nassourdine Imavov took the unsigned middleweight title fight to Sean Strickland’s door. Strickland was not there. Imavov walked the gym anyway, pointed at the camera, and put the contract on him in public.
“I’m here in your gym,” Imavov said. “Sign the contract. Do you need a pen? Or do you need balls?”
The clip runs about 11 seconds. Imavov is in a beige tracksuit, first outside a warehouse wall in Las Vegas, then inside a gym with a cage behind him. He is not chasing Strickland down a sidewalk this time. He is talking to an empty room and treating the absence as the answer. The pen line is the offer. The balls line is the accusation.
This is the second time in a week Imavov has gone looking for the champion in person. The first was at the UFC Performance Institute, where he pressed Strickland about the unsigned bout, said he had money, and followed him as he walked off. Security stepped in. Strickland later called that scene cringe and said Imavov had planned it. The gym video does not include a reply, because Strickland is not in it.
The fight they are arguing over was supposed to be the first defense of the belt Strickland took from Khamzat Chimaev at UFC 328 in May. Strickland is 31-7, 18-7 in the UFC. Imavov is 17-4, 9-2 in the UFC, and he has won five in a row, the last of them a decision over Caio Borralho.
Their only meeting was January 14, 2023, a short-notice light heavyweight bout that Strickland won by unanimous decision.
Strickland wrote last month that the rematch was down to pay. It did not get past that. UFC 335 on December 12 in Las Vegas was announced without him. Imavov then put $500,000 of his own money on a January fight and told the UFC to strip the champion if he still would not sign.
“If it’s really about money, I’ll put $500K of my own money on the line if you beat me in January,” Imavov wrote. “If you still don’t take it, then you’re just scared.”
Strickland answered that pressure by talking about leaving. He said he was over the UFC unless the money changed, floated giving up the belt, moving to 205, and finishing the deal so he could box Jake Paul.
Paul wrote back that he had seen the texts and asked if Strickland was out of contract. “Tell your “promoter” to call MVP,” Paul posted. Strickland said he had not decided whether to nuke the deal, then added that putting hands on Paul sounded better than the UFC right now.
Imavov’s gym clip does not mention Paul or a purse. It treats the holdup as nerve. A pen is a prop. Balls is the charge he has already made in writing, when he said a champion who would not take $500,000 of someone else’s money was scared.
Showing up at the gym without the champion there does not settle the purse. It does put the demand on video after the sidewalk scene already went public.
The UFC has not stripped Strickland, and it has not booked the rematch. December is gone. January is the month Imavov named when he offered the money. Until one of them signs, the title defense is a camera bit: Imavov in the gym, Strickland on X, and a contract neither post has produced.
