Caio Borralho is planning to make Nassourdine Imavov’s homecoming a miserable one.
Borralho (17-1 MMA, 7-0 UFC) is set to face Imavov (16-4 MMA, 8-2 UFC) in the main event when the UFC returns to Imavov’s hometown of Paris, France, on September 6.
The Brazilian believes Imavov’s desire to entertain the partisan Parisian crowd at Accor Arena will be his undoing—and he’s confident he has the style to take out the UFC middleweight division’s No. 1 contender.
"I'm going to pressure this guy, he's going to get tired, and I'm going to knock him out," Borralho told Submission Radio this week. "That's what I'm going to do. He's going to be too emotional in this fight, and I'm going to knock him out with his own emotions. I'm going to be honest with you, this is a fight where I'm going to get punched in the face. He's going to get punched in the face, but everybody already saw who is comfortable in this position of getting punched in the face, and it's not him.
"He doesn't like to get punched. Even in training, I heard a lot about him. I've been training with guys who already trained with him. He gets mad when he gets touched in his face, and that's exactly what's going to happen in the fight. I'm going to touch him a lot, I'm going to pressure him, I'm going to defend his speed and then in the right time, I'm going to knock him out."
A four-fight win streak has propelled Imavov to the front of the line in the 185-pound division. “The Sniper” was last seen in action at UFC Saudi Arabia earlier this year, where he stopped former UFC champion Israel Adesanya to secure the biggest win of his career.
But Borralho—who remains undefeated in the UFC with seven straight wins—isn’t impressed.
"You beat old Izzy, you had an early stoppage with Cannonier that you were losing the fight, you almost didn't beat Brendan Allen," Borralho said of Imavov. "He did an awful fight where he got tired with Brendan Allen, and I've been dominating all my opponents.
"Cannonier, Paul Craig, Abus (Magomedov), Michal (Oleksiejczuk), and all these guys. I've been dominating all of them. I think the only competitive fight that I had was against Cannonier, but I still dominated this fight. So, I'm the guy who's supposed to be going into this run for the belt because I'm undefeated in the UFC."
