Sean Strickland isn’t headlining UFC 335, and according to Strickland himself, his ATV crash had nothing to do with it. The money did.
The December 12 card at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas will now be topped by Charles Oliveira defending the BMF belt against Diego Lopes. That left plenty of fans assuming the middleweight champ’s 60 mph side-by-side rollover in late September had knocked him off the card. Content creator Ruben Carter pushed that version on Instagram, posting that Strickland pulled out of an Imavov fight because of injuries from the crash. A commenter under Carter’s post said Strickland was really asking the UFC for more money. Strickland replied with two words: “Bingo lol.”
That lines up with what MMA Mania’s Alex Behunin reported on X. Per his sources, Strickland was available and ready for UFC 335, came out of the crash with no injuries, and the UFC simply went another way. Strickland was reportedly back sparring the day after the rollover with only some bruising on his head and arms.
None of this should shock anybody who reads his timeline. On September 27, a fan on X asked if he was fighting Imavov, and Strickland said the two sides were discussing pay, that the fight would be locked in once that got squared away, and that they were almost there. In the same exchange he took a shot at his would-be challenger, saying nobody cares about the fake Frenchman.
Imavov Opens His Own Wallet
Imavov had already needled Strickland after the UFC 335 lineup dropped without him, mocking him on X for playing tough. Then on Sunday he went nuclear. He quoted an unverified claim from the X account @Erntastedfresh that Strickland wants $1 million to fight Imavov at UFC 336 on January 16 while the UFC is offering $400,000 to show and $400,000 to win, and he answered with an offer of his own.
“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, tagging Strickland. “If you still don’t take it, then you’re just scared.”
He then tagged the UFC directly, asked if this was really its champ, and told the promotion to strip him.
Neither the UFC nor Strickland has confirmed the $1 million figure or the $400,000/$400,000 offer, so treat those numbers as a rumor until somebody with a name and a contract says otherwise.
Where Everybody Stands
Strickland took the belt from Khamzat Chimaev at UFC 328 on May 9 in Newark, a huge upset that almost certainly landed him the biggest check of his career. Before that he fought Anthony Hernandez in Houston in February, and in the buildup to that fight he blasted the UFC’s pay structure as predatory and unfair, comparing it to the NFL. He hasn’t defended the title yet.
UFC 335 is stacked without him anyway. Oliveira won the BMF strap from Max Holloway at UFC 326 in March, and Lopes is coming off a knockout of Steve Garcia at UFC White House. Alex Pereira meets Sergei Pavlovich in a five-round heavyweight co-main, and Brandon Moreno vs. Charles Johnson is also on the card.
Here’s my take. I’m with Strickland on fighter pay, and a guy who just beat Chimaev has every right to squeeze. But you can’t call Imavov a nobody who’ll move zero tickets and then demand a raise to fight him, because that tells the UFC exactly what it wants to hear in negotiations. Imavov has flipped the whole thing on its head by turning a salary dispute into a dare, which is the best villain move anybody at 185 has pulled all year. Nobody is stripping a champion over one skipped card. Still, if January 16 rolls around and Strickland is sitting home with a belt and a grievance, the scared label is going to stick a lot harder than any bruise from that ATV.
