Nassourdine Imavov, Umar Nurmagomedov, Strickland vs. Imavov card predictions

UFC Unfiltered with Jim Norton and Matt Serra

With the first UFC event of the new year upon us, today’s episode of UFC Unfiltered features interviews with two intriguing fighters from Saturday’s main card in bantamweight Umar Nurmagomedov and headliner Nassourdine Imavov.

Set to face Raoni Barcelos in his fourth UFC fight, Umar shares why he thinks the Brazilian veteran is his toughest fight thus far. The unbeaten bantamweight then shares what it means coming from a family ingrained in martial arts before expressing his thoughts on cousin Khabib Nurmagomedov’s decision to step aside from his role as a hands-on coach alongside American Kickboxing Academy’s own Javier Mendez.

With the help of his translator, Nassourdine Imavov shares how he found out about the injury to Kelvin Gastelum which changed his main event opponent to 7th-ranked middleweight and notorious trash-talker Sean Strickland.

Born in Dagestan but raised in France, Imavov talks his path from boxing as a child to discovering MMA later in life. Nassourdine opens up about how special it was to decisively beat Joaquin Buckley in front of friends and family in France’s first-ever UFC event after talking about what he expects from Strickland on Saturday night.

The guys then wrap up the show with some fight picks for Saturday’s card taking place at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas at 4:00 pm ET.