According to No.2 ranked middleweight contender Nassourdine Imavov the UFC has already tried to book a title fight between him and current champion Khamzat Chimaev twice, but hasn’t been able to make it stick yet.

“So, no final news yet,” Imavov told MMA Fighting when asked if he is going to be fighting Khamzat next. “No contract signed or whatever. One of the last discussions I had with them was with Hunter Campbell and Mick Maynard in Doha, Qatar when it was a Doha event. And the thing that they told me is that they wanted to schedule the fight against Khamzat for December, then for February, but then Khamzat got injured and they were thinking about when they can [have] this fight.

“But nothing confirmed yet. We spoke recently with Mick Maynard, the matchmaker, and he was [talking about] the fight against Khamzat, but we don’t have final approval, or whatever.”

Imavov has also been talking up a potential rematch with Sean Strickland, but it does seem like the title fight against Khamzat is the more likely option at this stage, if the champion can remain healthy enough to make it happen at some stage after Ramadan in March.

Imavov also addressed the fact that Khamzat had previously indicated that the two of them have a good relationship, insisting that while it’s true, it won’t stand in the way of the fight taking place.

“We are in the same position, we know each other, and everything. But like he said, if the UFC want to put this fight [together], they will go in and they will go full inside the cage, and that’s it,” Imavov said.

“So I saw a lot of comments and everything on Twitter about [me] and Khamazt not willing to fight each other and everything. No, that’s not the truth. The only thing is that right now it’s for the belt, so it’s for the belt. It’s in the hands of the UFC, and UFC puts the fight they want for the belt. And if they call Nassourdine  to fight Khamzat, or Khamzat to fight Nassourdine, that’s the same, but both [of us] will say yes, and we will go full at it.”