Tag: Chris Curtis

Chris Curtis slams Nassourdine Imavov after blatant illegal head kick at UFC Vegas 85: ‘What a time to be alive’

Chris Curtis and Nassourdine ImavovMiddleweight standout Chris Curtis was left fuming after his teammate, Roman Dolidze, was on the wrong side of a…

Chris Curtis and Nassourdine Imavov

Middleweight standout Chris Curtis was left fuming after his teammate, Roman Dolidze, was on the wrong side of a series of illegal blows in his UFC Vegas 85 headliner with Nassourdine Imavov.

While the bout between Dolidze and Imavov was largely lackluster, things began to heat up in the fourth round when Imavov delivered a brutal head kick to Dolidze. The only problem was that Dolidze had his hand planted on the mat establishing him as a downed fighter.

Dolidze’s corner — which included Curtis — erupted in protest. Taking exception to their comments, Imavov nearly started a cageside brawl before referee Herb Deal pulled him back, threatening to disqualify him if the outburst continued.

Once the bickering stopped and Dolidze had some time to recover, the fight was restarted without issue. In the end, Nassourdine Imavov went on to win the bout via majority decision, but it’s safe to say the feud between Imavov and ‘The Action Man’ is far from over.

Shortly after the contest, Curtis took a dig at Imavov on X, noting all the infractions he claims to have witnessed during the heated main event.

Imavov Wants to Settle Things with Chris Curtis Behind Closed Doors

The rivalry between Chris Curtis and the ‘Russian Sniper’ goes back to their June 2023 clash at UFC 289. The bout was called off in the second round and declared a no-contest after an accidental clash of heads.

During his appearance at the post-fight press conference on Saturday, Imavov offered Curtis an opportunity to settle things with a “real sparring session” at Xtreme Couture. “I’m going to destroy him as I did in the cage,” Imavov added.

Nassourdine Imavov tries to brawl with Chris Curtis during main event clash against Roman Dolidze – UFC Vegas 85 Highlights

Nassourdine ImavovDagestani standout Nassourdine Imavov left The APEX with another big win on his resume, though it didn’t come without…

Nassourdine Imavov

Dagestani standout Nassourdine Imavov left The APEX with another big win on his resume, though it didn’t come without a bit of controversy.

From the opening bell, it was clear that Imavov had the advantage on the feet. That much was evident when he nearly finished Dolidze in the opening round with a big right hand and a heap of ground-and-pound strikes.

After a back-and-forth clinch battle in the second and third rounds, things proceeded to heat up in the fourth when Imavov delivered a blatantly illegal head kick to Dolidze who had one hand on the mat, signifying that he was a downed opponent.

As Dolidze attempted to recover, Imavov began arguing with his opponent’s corner, including UFC standout Chris Curtis. That forced referee Herb Dean to step in and threaten to disqualify Imavov.

After a few moments, cooler heads prevailed and Dolidze was ready to continue. Clearly pissed off, Dolidze went for broke, securing his first takedown of the fight.

The fifth round was by far the most competitive with Dolidze doing a little submission hunting in the later moments, but in the end, Imavov survived the final five and scored his fifth win inside the Octagon.

Official Result: Nassourdine Imavov def. Roman Dolidze via majority decision (49-44, 47-47, 48-46)

Check Out Highlights From Roman Dolidze vs. Nassourdine Imavov at UFC Vegas 85:

Chris Curtis refuses to let Sean Strickland’s controversial views affect their friendship: ‘We disagree on a lot’

Sean Strickland and Chris CurtisDespite their vastly different personalities, outspoken middleweight star Sean Strickland and the much more reserved Chris Curtis have struck…

Sean Strickland and Chris Curtis

Despite their vastly different personalities, outspoken middleweight star Sean Strickland and the much more reserved Chris Curtis have struck up one of MMA’s most intriguing friendships.

Strickland and ‘The Action Man’ were both in action at UFC 297 in Toronto with the former suffering a razor-close split decision loss to Dricus Du Plessis, surrendering the 185-pound title in the process. Hours ahead of their entertaining five-round scrap, Strickland once again made headlines after being asked about his previous anti-LGBTQ comments during an appearance at the pre-fight press conference.

Strickland proceeded to roast the journalist who identified themself as an “ally” of the LGBTQ community.

Speaking about his friend’s often outrageous and sometimes vile commentaries during an interview with TMZ Sports, Curtis confirmed that there are plenty of topics that the two are far apart on.

“Me and Sean disagree on a lot,” Curtis said. “There’s a lot of things I’m like, ‘Nope, I’m not gonna back you on this one’ for one reason or another and it’s funny that people would be like, ‘You’re a bad friend.’ No, I’m a good friend. I’m not a yes man. I won’t be a yes man for anybody. I’ll call Sean on his bullsh*t the same way he’ll call me on my bullsh*t. Good friends don’t jump off a cliff right behind you.

“A good friend is like, ‘You’re a f*cking idiot for doing this, and here’s why.’ So I don’t have to agree with everything he says or does. There are some lines he crosses where I will step forward. We’ve had talks before about certain things like this personally offends me or trying to protect you from yourself and getting screwed over. But I don’t have to agree with everything he says. I’m a grown-ass man and he’s a grown-ass man.”

While Sean Strickland came up short in his outing in The Great White North, ‘The Action Man’ returned to the win column following a 15-minute slugfest with Marc-André Barriault. Curtis moved up one spot in the middleweight rankings as a result, landing in the No. 13 spot. He has alternated wins and losses in his last four Octagon appearances.

“If you only have friends that you completely agree with 100% of the time, you’re probably a pretty sh*tty [and] shallow person and I just whatever,” Curtis continued. “I don’t have to agree with him and in a way, I think our vastly different personalities keep each other more centered, but it is what it is. He’s a f*cking grown man. He’s gonna say sh*t I don’t agree with. I’m gonna say sh*t he doesn’t agree with. It doesn’t matter. Grow up.”

Chris Curtis offers his take on Sean Strickland’s stunning UFC 293 victory: ‘We all knew he could win’

StricklandTraining together at Xtreme Couture in Las Vegas, Chris Curtis probably knows more about Sean Strickland’s style and skill than anyone. Still, that didn’t stop ‘The Action Man’ from being absolutely stunned by his dominant performance against Israel Adesanya at UFC 293. Strickland delivered perhaps the performance of a lifetime in his first shot at […]

Strickland

Training together at Xtreme Couture in Las Vegas, Chris Curtis probably knows more about Sean Strickland’s style and skill than anyone. Still, that didn’t stop ‘The Action Man’ from being absolutely stunned by his dominant performance against Israel Adesanya at UFC 293.

Strickland delivered perhaps the performance of a lifetime in his first shot at a world title. Stepping in on relatively short notice against the man many consider to be the greatest middleweight of all time, ‘Tarzan’ dictated everything that happened inside the Octagon for 25 minutes en route to scoring one of the biggest upsets in UFC title fight history.

Following the contest, Adesany’s coach at City Kickboxing, Eugene Bareman fielded questions on his behalf and suggested that ‘The Last Stylebender’ simply had an “off night.” However, Sean Strickland’s teammate, Chris Curtis, had a much different take while discussing the UFC 293 headliner on The MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani.

“If you watch Sean spar anybody, it goes very similar to that,” Curtis said. “I’ve seen him spar a bunch of people. You can get better fighting against Sean, but every time someone has their first rounds with Sean, it goes exactly this way. Where people are like, ‘What the hell is going on?’ So everybody’s like, ‘Izzy looked off.’ I’ve seen this a thousand times. You can get better at fighting him, but when you initially run into him you are just confused.

“Everything he does is, on paper, wrong. It’s not the way you’re supposed to move. He moves weird, he throws weird, he kung fu blocks, he’s really good at shutting down the things you’re supposed to be good at. You hear at one point Izzy say, ‘I can’t find my jab.’ It’s hard to find your jab against Sean because he creates so much random traffic with his jab or when you start jabbing he’s parrying weird, he’s kung fu blocking.

“In most combat sports, especially kickboxing and boxing, everything is predicated off of your jab. Everything sets up with your jab, so when he just takes that away from you, no, it’s not there, you can’t out-jab Sean. He’s going to win that battle. He’s either going to counter you or just make your jab pointless. Look at Izzy, he’s throwing jabs, he’s getting his arm blocked up high, a few times he’d throw and Sean just bats his arm up and away. … So all that bullsh*t about Izzy looked different, no, you look confused like I looked confused and everyone else looks confused when they spar Sean because it’s like, ‘What are you doing?’ No, that’s bullsh*t, I’ve seen this happen for seven years and this is what he does” (h/t MMA Fighting).

Perhaps even more shocking is the fact that the UFC never intended to book Sean Strickland to challenge Adesanya for the middleweight title in The Land Down Under. Originally, the plan was to have the division’s top-ranked contender, Dricus Du Plessis, step in two months after his stunning second-round knockout against Robert Whittaker at UFC 290. Unfortunately, Du Plessis was unable to commit to an eight-week notice after suffering a toe injury in July.

The promotion seemingly scrambled to find anyone other than Sean Strickland, but in the end, it was Adesanya who took credit for pushing the UFC into booking the fight.

“Sean is probably the toughest human being that I’ve met when it comes to fighting,” Curtis said. “I love fighting, he’s probably the only person I genuinely know who enjoys fighting more than I do. I knew he could win this fight, I didn’t think he would make it look that easy. I don’t think he thought that he would make it look that easy.

“We all knew he could win, we were like, ‘Sean’s tough as nails, he’s patient, he’s aggressive, he can do this. He’s got to make it an ugly war and get Izzy to fight a dumb fight.’ No one ever thought that he would out-kickbox Izzy. I’m watching and I’m like, ‘This is not what you trained, oh my God.’”

Chris Curtis Was Expecting Sean Strickland to Try and Wrestle Adesanya at UFC 293

Given his status as a 7-to-1 underdog, many fight fans, and Curtis himself expected Sean Strickland to put his ground game to work considering it has been a bit of an Achille’s heel for ‘The Last Stylebender’ in previous outings. Needless to say, nobody expected ‘Tarzan’ to beat Adesanya in a kickboxing bout. And certainly not as decisively as he did.

“Honestly, the pressure, yeah, but we really hoped he would wrestle,” Curtis said. “Watching Sean spar, he would shoot, but he was still just kickboxing people, fighting like Sean, so you knew that was going to be a part of it but you’re hoping that he’d mix in wrestling. Make it hard, drag him down, wear him out.

“Everybody’s like, ‘Is he going to wrestle?’ I was like, ‘He’s trained to wrestle, but it’s Sean, so he’s going to get in there and…’ I said he’s probably going to in there and have a kickboxing match. Lo and behold, he went in there and he freaking won a kickboxing match against Izzy. I don’t think anyone saw that coming.”

Strickland has never been particularly known for his knockout power. With 20 career fights in the UFC, ‘Tarzan’ has only secured four finishes by way of knockout. But that didn’t stop Strickland from nearly ending things in the first after landing a massive right hand that sent Adesanya crashing to the canvas.

“People don’t realize, Sean actually hits hard,” Curtis said. “It’s not like “he’s going to knock you out in one punch” hard, but it’s enough thudding to where it stuns you. So when Izzy went down I went, ‘OK, he’s down, he’s landing shots’ and part of me was like ‘Oh my God if he finishes Izzy in one round, the world’s going to implode.’

“You’re excited and it’s crazy but then you’ve got to remember the Pereira fight and I’m like, ‘Bro, don’t take a bad risk here.’ You’re kind of like, ‘Win the fight, win the fight, but please don’t screw up here.’ And it’s crazy because I’ve never seen someone bat a thousand like that, he just did everything right. I don’t think he made a mistake that fight.”

Paulo Costa floated as potential opponent for Sean Strickland after UFC 293 title win: ‘I know they had beef’

Paulo Costa floated as title fight opponent for Sean Strickland they had beef UFCWhile an immediate championship rematch between Sean Strickland and former champion, Israel Adesanya has been widely floated in the fallout from UFC 293, the newly-minted champion’s teammate, Chris Curtis, has claimed Strickland should fight incoming UFC 294 feature, Paulo Costa in his first attempted title defense.  Strickland, who headlined his first pay-per-view event under the […]

Paulo Costa floated as title fight opponent for Sean Strickland they had beef UFC

While an immediate championship rematch between Sean Strickland and former champion, Israel Adesanya has been widely floated in the fallout from UFC 293, the newly-minted champion’s teammate, Chris Curtis, has claimed Strickland should fight incoming UFC 294 feature, Paulo Costa in his first attempted title defense. 

Strickland, who headlined his first pay-per-view event under the banner of the Dana White-led promotion last weekend, managed to turn in a one of the most jaw-dropping title upset victories to boot, defeating two-time champion, Adesanya in a one-sided unanimous decision (49-46, 49-46, 49-46) success in Sydney, Australia.

And in the immediate aftermath of the shocking upset triumphs, Strickland has been lined up to fight Adesanya in the immediate future in a rematch turnaround, particularly by promotional leader, White.

As far as Adesanya’s head coach is concerned, a rematch between his City Kickboxing student, and newly-crowned titleholder, Strickland could take place as soon as December at UFC 296, or in the opening months of next year.

Could Sean Strickland defend his title against Paulo Costa next?

However, according to middleweight contender, Curtis, the Xtreme Couture staple has claimed his training partner, Strickland and Brazilian favorite, Paulo Costa should share the Octagon next.

“Honestly, I really want to see him (Sean Strickland) fight Paulo (Costa),” Chris Curtis told MMA Fighting. “I know they had beef, and I know Sean really wanted to fight Paulo. He really wanted to beat him up and there was some talk going on there, and Paulo found a reason not to fight.” (Transcribed by MMA News)

The one-time middleweight title challenger has his hands most definitely full at the time of publication despite Curtis’ backing for a title fight with Strickland, with Costa set to feature at UFC 294 next month, welcoming undefeated Chechen finisher, Khamzat Chimaev back to the middleweight limit and active competition to boot.

Would you like to see Paulo Costa challenge Sean Strickland for the title? 

Video – Ian Garry pleads with Chris Curtis to stop sparring after suffering a rib injury

ian garryFootage shows UFC 185lber Chris Curtis attempting to fight on after suffering a rib injury while sparring Ian Garry. Garry and his team have been churning out social media content for some time now, documenting the Irishman travelling around the world and training at different gyms. In the latest chapter, this time in Miami, Florida, […]

ian garry

Footage shows UFC 185lber Chris Curtis attempting to fight on after suffering a rib injury while sparring Ian Garry.

Garry and his team have been churning out social media content for some time now, documenting the Irishman travelling around the world and training at different gyms. In the latest chapter, this time in Miami, Florida, Garry enlisted the help of the well-experienced middleweight, Curtis for sparring.

However, during the training session, Curtis appeared to injure on of his ribs, claiming he had separated it. After a short break, the American quickly attempted to get straight back to action much to dismay of Garry.

“Stop being an idiot. BRO! I’m gonna jump the f**k out of the ring,” Garry said.

“Come on, it’s a rib, Layla [Garry’s wife] make him fight” Curtis responded.

“You’re too tough for your own good. You’re fighting soon,” Garry replied.

“I got six weeks,” Curtis said attempting to reason, “Ian buddy come on, finish the round”.

“You’re going to come in the next one. Trust me,” said Garry. This is where you being smart is going to get you to the f*****g top five, the belt, all of that shit. You don’t need to be tough here.”

Curtis is currently booked to face Anthony Hernandez on September 16 as part of a UFC Fight Night card.

Ian Garry takes on Geoff Neal at UFC 292

Sparring Curtis does present a similar fighting style of Garry’s next opponent, Goeff Neal. The pair will face one another in just 10 days time on the main card of UFC 292, headlined by Aljamain Sterling and Sean O’Malley.

It will be the biggest test of Garry’s young career and will also be a chance for the 25-year-old to break into the welterweight top-10.

Who wins, Ian Garry or Geoff Neal?