UFC Fight Night 222 Aftermath: What Did We Learn about Sergei Pavlovich?

This past weekend, Sergei Pavlovich extended his first-round knockout streak to six straight fights against Curtis Blaydes. The fight lasted just over three minutes and as Pavlovich stood in front of Blaydes, he had the former JUCO national wrestling champion scared to shoot.

This is Aftermath, the weekly column where we analyze the fights that were. In all honesty, this one might be a little short. There’s only so much we can derive after Pavlovich was not tested by Blaydes’ wrestling, but there are a few things to glean from the fight, so we will do that.

Blaydes: Scared Money Don’t Make Money

Let’s be completely clear here: The game plan put forth by Blaydes at “UFC Vegas 71” was pretty bad. He knew that Pavlovich had been on a five-fight first-round knockout streak. Why with him when you’re a former junior college wrestling champion and a fighter known for just that?

The fact of the matter is that Blaydes did not want to find himself on the receiving end of another Derrick Lewis-esque knockout. Blaydes is a very, very skilled fighter. His wrestling might be the best in the heavyweight division. He is almost certainly a terror of a matchup for Jon Jones. The only thing is that when it comes to power punching, Blaydes is seemingly petrified. He wanted to box with Pavlovich and keep him on the end of his jab. He did not want to be forced to shoot, despite the option to shoot to the outside of the lead leg and not into his opponent’s power hand. Blaydes’ approach, whether he was actually having a flashback to the Lewis and Francis Ngannou knockouts or simply wanted to show off some of his new boxing skills, did not work against Pavlovich.

Despite being perhaps one of the most skilled fighters in the UFC’s heavyweight division, Blaydes continued to underperform for the scope of his career. Luckily for him, heavyweight is an old man’s game and he is only 32. He has time to make a run at the title one of these days.

Pavlovich: Another Banging Out

I want to make sure I don’t get off on the wrong foot in talking about Pavlovich’s run to the top of the heavyweight division. It has been a relatively quick rise and he is only 30. That means he has the potential to be a headache for many contenders for a long while, title or no title. His now six-fight streak of first-round knockouts is nothing short of incredible. He is a very skilled and talented fighter.

We just didn’t learn anything new about him.

What made the matchup with Blaydes exciting was that Pavlovich had lost his UFC debut against Alistair Overeem because Overeem decided to grapple to negate Pavlovich’s power. It worked for Overeem, and Blaydes—who was in Overeem’s camp for that fight— seemed like a nightmare of a matchup for Pavlovich. We didn’t get to see that, though, and that’s not to blame Pavlovich. If Blaydes was going to stand and trade with him, there’s no reason Pavlovich should even think to change things up. He’s a boxer and that’s his bread and butter.

I wanted to see if Pavlovich could fend off a well-shot takedown. Instead, we got to see a desperate attempt from Blaydes after getting beat up for some time. It was an impressive performance but, for people like you and me, who like to analyze fighters and do film study, we didn’t get much new. It was almost a bummer.

Despite that, there were things Pavlovich did well as he normally does. In our Beforemath column previewing this fight, we talked specifically about how Pavlovich did well avoiding clinch situations when he had his opponent hurt. Once he hurt Blaydes, Pavlovich did pursue, but didn’t get too overzealous and allow Blaydes to shoot a takedown. He kept just enough pressure, and knew the range just well enough, to land his shots and slip any return fire from Blaydes who covered up and looked for a big return shot to keep Pavlovich off of him.

Pavlovich has a really good tendency to move his head despite his square footwork and hips. Moving his head off the center line also allows Pavlovich to avoid damage and land his own strikes. Against Blaydes, we saw that several times. With Blaydes wanting to box, Pavlovich was able to get a read on the shallower pool tendencies. (1) Pavlovich will read out the jab of Blaydes and slip to the outside of the punch. The outside slip is the important part for Pavlovich as you’ll see shortly here. It opens up different strikes as opposed to the inside slip. (2) With Blaydes extended on the jab and Pavlovich on the outside, he will return fire with a jab up the middle. (3) Here is where the outside slip comes into play. Getting on the outside of the jabbing hand, Pavlovich can come over the top with a right hand and cause some ruckus for Blaydes. This punch wouldn’t be available on the inside and would force Pavlovich to use something like an uppercut (not a bad choice here). To add an extra point on things, Pavlovich (4) follows up with one more jab up the middle through the guard of Blaydes.

Pavlovich’s head movement is above average, especially in terms of the heavyweight division. We don’t see it often because he finishes so quickly, but going forward, I’d like to see a bit more of it in his future fights, should they go longer than his last six.

Another good thing we saw from Pavlovich was the rear uppercut. We saw in our preview that Blaydes ate that big uppercut from Lewis and was put out of his misery. Pavlovich took the uppercut a step further and used it to land actual damage on Blaydes, not just a one-hitter-quitter knockout. The rear uppercut worked so well for Pavlovich because we know just how badly Blaydes didn’t want to eat one of those again on a takedown attempt. Pavlovich showing Blaydes that rear uppercut was a subtle yet firm reminder that these types of punches do exist and he needs to be wary of them.

It seems as if Pavlovich is a fight away from fighting for the heavyweight title. The key is finding out whether Jon Jones, who pretty much controls his own destiny, is interested. If he’s not, Pavlovich will need one more big knockout, maybe against Ciryl Gane or Tom Aspinall. There, he can win the Jon Jones sweepstakes and earn the right to take on the GOAT.