“I knew there would be these Moscow maneuvers” – Bilostenny on the fight between Pavlovich and Volkov

Russian PFL fighter Sergei Bilostennyi, in a conversation with Match TV, gave his assessment of the fight between Alexander Volkov and Sergei Pavlovich, after which the fighters refused to shake hands.

Volkov, Pavlovich and Bilostenny had previously been sparring partners, training together in Moscow. At the UFC tournament in Saudi Arabia on June 22, Volkov won against Pavlovich by unanimous decision, after which Pavlovich refused to shake Volkov’s hand. The day before, during the weigh-in ceremony, the fighters exchanged dissatisfied remarks towards each other.

— You communicated with both Volkov and Pavlovich. What did you think when you watched their fight and how their relationship changed during the week of the tournament?

— I knew from the start that there would be all these things, Moscow maneuvers, I guess you could call it that. And Seryoga, probably, has gotten out of the habit of it, and that’s it. As for the fight — it was just that day: Sanya did everything right, but Seryoga didn’t do it the way it should have been and the way he wanted. I think that Sergey is a professional, I think he will work on his mistakes, work hard, he has no problems with that, and he will return.

— Could he reorganize during such a fight?

— I can’t say. When such questions are asked, Alexander Shlemenko or Sergey Kharitonov can answer, they can somehow go into such things, but I’m not ready to do that. Because it’s all very illusory, we can watch 100 fights, when people receive incredible damage, try to survive for two rounds, and in the third the fight ends early, because the person’s head ended up where the fist was. Or people can fight for three rounds, and at the same time from the very beginning one took his own pace, imposed his style, found his distance, and that’s it — for 15 minutes we watch a beating in one direction.

— Don’t you think that Pavlovich was so abrupt in his charge for one blow and abandoned some tactics because he didn’t like the way Volkov was behaving? And do you imagine that if your opponent could speak and joke with you in the same language, you could also get angry.

– It doesn’t affect me at all. I understand that he can say whatever he wants. He can take out a knife, show it to me, or take out a gun and aim, but tomorrow the cage will slam shut, and we’ll be left there alone. I don’t really care.

I think it’s also a question of where you grew up, where and how they speak. That is, I don’t take it seriously. And the same thing that happened at their weigh-in — I would have just stood there laughing. I’m sure that it didn’t make any impression on Seryoga either, especially at the weigh-in. It was probably like this, that during the week of the fight, Alexander could come up to me and say in a friendly way, “Oh! Hi… Oh, you’re so healthy. Are you working out?” And then he went and made it worse, but I don’t believe that it plays a role, it seems to me that Sanya was better that evening and that’s it,” Bilostennyi told Match TV.

Live broadcasts of mixed martial arts tournaments can be seen on the Match TV and Match! Fighter TV channels, as well as on the websites matchtv.ru and sportbox.ru.