It was scratched at the last minute from the UFC Fight Island 7 card, but Phil Hawes vs. Nassourdine Imavov is back on.
TSN’s Aaron Bronsteter was first to report on Wednesday that the middleweight scrap has been rescheduled for the UFC’s February 20 event. That card, while not officially announced, is expected to take place at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Hawes (9-2) came up short on The Ultimate Fighter in 2016, and Dana White’s Contender Series in 2017, before returning for an encore performance on DWCS last September. Winning his way into the UFC at long last, Hawes finished Jacob Malkoun in just seconds in his official octagon debut back in October.
“Russian Sniper” Nassourdine Imavov (9-2) boasts an identical record to Hawes. Like Hawes, he won his UFC debut last year, in his case against Jordan Williams.
Hawes vs. Imavov joins a card topped by heavyweight action in Derrick Lewis vs. Curtis Blaydes. The following bouts have been reported for the event thus far.
Curtis Blaydes vs. Derrick Lewis
Ketlen Vieira vs. Yana Kunitskaya
Danny Chavez vs. Jared Gordon
Aleksei Oleinik vs. Chris Daukaus
Shana Dobson vs. Casey O’Neill
Eddie Wineland vs. John Castaneda
Drakkar Klose vs. Jai Herbert
Charles Rosa vs. Darrick Minner
Michael Trizano vs. Rafael Alves
Sergey Spivak vs. Jared Vanderaa
Andrei Arlovski vs. Tom Aspinall
Julian Erosa vs. Nate Landwehr
Chas Skelly vs. Jamall Emmers
Aiemann Zahabi vs. Drako Rodriguez
Phil Hawes vs. Nassourdine Imavov
