On Saturday 23, in Shanghai at the UFC Fight Night 257 tournament, Russian Sergei Pavlovich will be drawn with Waldo Cortes-Acost. If we success, our heavyweight will have a chance to get a title. The fighter was already as close as possible to the UFC temporary champion belt, but flew away in the first round.

Then it became clear that you can forget about a full title in the near future.

The hope of Russia

After an unsuccessful debut in the UFC, Russian fighter Sergei Pavlovich began to rapidly gain momentum and quickly turned into the main contender for a heavyweight belt among Russians. Shamil Abdurakhimov and Alexei Oleinik were already on the decline, Alexander Volkov, who periodically gave hopes to the fans, at the most inopportune moment suffered defeats. And Pavlovich, after failure in a duel with Alistar Overim, gave a series of six wins in a row, and in all six cases he solved all the problems ahead of schedule in the first rounds.

Formally, John Jones remained the king of heavy weight, but since the American actually stopped going out into the cage, the status of the strongest was determined by others. On November 11, 2023, at the UFC 295 tournament in New York Pavlovich and the Englishman Tom Aspinell decided the fate of the UFC temporary champion belt. The memories of the British quarrel among Russian fans were not the best: earlier he dealt with Alexander Volkov, using the strengths in the struggle. However, Sergey, who had skills in the classical struggle, and he himself could cause many problems to the opponent.

– Yes, in the days of Fight Nights I always fought normally. I always strove for spectacular battles and knockouts. Accordingly, I could always fight normally, but did not make a large bet on this. I had another task. I have no task to complete sparring with a pain or suffocating technique. This is not my job. I have a different job. You can fight, beat and do a somersault. Anything. But you must have your own plan that suits you. Suddenly the opponent will turn out to be a strong nut, the plan will not pass and another is needed. And he may not go, so you need a third plan, ”Pavlovich quotes Metaratings.

Tears of the champion

As the course of the fight showed, all Pavlovich’s plans failed, although initially nothing hinted at a possible failure. The fighters before the fight greeted each other warmly, demonstrating that this was just a job in which there was nothing personal. The Englishman after the Referee team broke from a low start and struck Lowe, but Sergey could not be frightened by this. He calmly withstood the blow and began to look for an opportunity for his attack.

Sergey Pavlovich and Tom Aspinell / Photo: © Sarah Stier / Staff / Getty Images Sport / Gettyimages.ru

After a couple of missing blows, Pavlovich finally exploded and fell well with the right in the head of the opponent. The truth is not so cool that Aspinell swim. The opponent was also not averse to cutting down, he failed the next attack of Sergey, answered Lowe. All this, in principle, was not dangerous, but in heavy weight it is enough to yawn one blow, and everything will go to dust.

The next attack in the head was shocked by Pavlovich, after another deuce, the Russian collapsed, received three powerful “hammer” finished off on the head, then the referee hastily stopped the referee. Sergey was lying on a canvas and did not particularly argue with the judge. Aspinell fell nearby – his emotions poured over the edge. The Englishman even burst into tears a little, nevertheless, such a quick victory over the formidable opponent was partly sensational. Tom became a temporary and then full -fledged UFC champion.

See direct broadcasts of UFC tournaments on the channels “Match TV” and “Match! Fighter ”, as well as Matchtv.ru and Sportbox.ru sites.