Max Griffin and Zelim Imadaev competed on the preliminary card of UFC 236, with Griffin picking up a majority decision win on that night.
The two had some run ins before the event and one of those took place at a restaurant that Griffin was eating at.
“There’s a lot of bad blood with this guy; he came at me yesterday morning at breakfast, at a restaurant,” Griffin said after the event (via Dave Doyle & Ken Hathaway of MMA Junkie). “The cops came. He tried to go after me again before the bus – we got on the bus yesterday – because I was talking (expletive). He’s an ass, man. Real bad sportsmanship.”
Griffin picked up his third win under the UFC banner, while Imadaev suffered his first defeat as a professional MMA fighter.
A story that Griffin also heard was that Imadaev was booted out of Xtreme Couture after trying to hurt various training partners.
“All I ever said in any interview was the truth,” Griffin said. “He got kicked out of Xtreme Couture in Vegas for trying to hurt all his sparring partners. He tried to get into a fight with Forrest Griffin at the PI in Vegas. He’s a dirty guy, man. He kind of solidified by what he was doing yesterday at the weigh-ins and after. It was good to get the win.”
There has been no comment from Imadaev since suffering a loss at UFC 236, which also marked the fighter’s UFC debut.