Opinion: Don’t Sleep on Sergei Pavlovich

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One of the better UFC Fight Night shows of the year goes down on Saturday in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Middle East audiences have high expectations for what the Ultimate Fighting Championship brings to the table, and if they aren’t getting a pay-per-view, they’re surely not going to accept a card that would be mistaken for a UFC Apex-level event. Thus, two-time middleweight champion Israel Adesanya partakes in his first non-title fight since February 2019 when he collides with the rising Nassourdine Imavov in the five-round UFC Fight Night 250 headliner at anb Arena. It wouldn’t be a UFC show in the Middle East without Sharabutdin Magomedov, either, as the sniping Russian welcomes longtime Bellator MMA fixture Michael Page to the middleweight division.

There’s one other fight that I would label as a contest that would be something the UFC would be promoting in addition to the aforementioned main and co-main events. However, I’ve barely heard anything from either the promotion or MMA talking heads about the heavyweight collision between Sergei Pavlovich and Jairzinho Rozenstruik. Admittedly, I get where the talking heads aren’t excited about it, given that heavyweight fights tend to turn into slogs, even in “high-level” contests. However, given that 14 of their 15 combined UFC wins have come via knockout, I can’t figure out why the UFC hasn’t been pushing the contest as anything other than a guarantee of someone going to sleep. After all, that’s what the company seems to do with every other high-profile heavyweight contest.

If I begin looking for reasons why the UFC might be slow to promote the contest, it isn’t too difficult to figure out why the organization may be more on the hush-hush side of things for Pavlovich-Rozenstruik fight. Pavlovich is coming off the worst performance of his career, showing a real hesitation to pull the trigger against Alexander Volkov. On the other side of the cage, Rozenstruik is one of the more boring fighters on the roster. Sure, he scores a lot of knockouts, but just about everything leading up to those KOs tends to induce narcolepsy.

That would all make sense to me except for the fact the UFC has never hesitated to push heavyweights to the forefront. For example, Rozenstruik has been in six UFC Fight Night main events, with several of those coming after his reputation as a largely boring fighter was cemented. Remember, too, that this is the same organization that kept Andrei Arlovski around until he was 45, all while paying him disclosed paydays well into the six figures long after he wasn’t even a gatekeeper to the official rankings. For whatever reason, the UFC loves its heavyweights.

However, while I do think the UFC would be well-served by giving less of a spotlight to heavyweights in general, I think the UFC is making a mistake in the way it’s handling Pavlovich. I don’t believe the UFC’s the only one making a mistake, either. MMA talking heads appear to have largely written off Pavlovich, too. If they haven’t written him off, they aren’t being very vocal about his future prospects at the very least.

Given the sudden and dramatic manner in which Pavlovich lost to Tom Aspinall, it’s only natural that he has lost some of his shine. His flat performance against Volkov following that loss hurts even more. However, are we seriously writing off six consecutive first-round KOs just like that? The likes of Derrick Lewis, Tai Tuivasa and Curtis Blaydes are among his victims, so it isn’t like Pavlovich just plowed through a bunch of no-names who are either already off the roster or are soon going to be. Besides, given the lack of depth within the division, any sort of performance that replicates one of the showings in that streak would likely be enough to warrant a rematch with Aspinall.

The thing that strikes me the most is how so many seem to be forgetting recent history. The rise and short fall of Pavlovich is strikingly similar to former UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou. “The Predator” won six contests in a row to start his UFC run, all of them KO stoppages. Ngannou suffered a devastating loss to Stipe Miocic in his first title fight, and in his first fight back from that loss, he was very trigger shy, resulting in a lackluster decision loss. Y’all see where I’m coming from yet?

Following Pavlovich’s loss to Aspinall, he was trigger shy against Volkov, suffering a lackluster decision loss in the process. Sure, it could be pointed out the primary reasons for their reluctance to fire away is different. Ngannou had too much respect for the power Lewis brought to bear, while Pavlovich was thrown off by the fact that Volkov had been one of his regular training partners in the past. Regardless, both refused to go back to what launched them into elite status in the first place.

The key here is how Ngannou reacted following the loss to Lewis. Ngannou found a killer instinct that had never been there before, rattling off four consecutive victories, with the longest lasting 71 seconds. He won the title over Miocic following that impressive streak and defended it against Ciryl Gane before relocating to the Professional Fighters League and dabbling in boxing. Bottom line? We saw the best version of Ngannou following his highly panned performance against Lewis. Is there any reason to believe we might not see the same out of Pavlovich?

I’m not predicting the same road for Pavlovich that Ngannou took. However, if there’s anyone who could replicate it, it’s difficult to imagine someone more in the mold to do so than Pavlovich. He’s got rare one-punch power. He’s young by heavyweight standards at 32. He hasn’t taken a whole lot of damage, either. Unless he’s permanently rattled psychologically, one has to believe the best version of Pavlovich has not yet stepped into the cage—if he ends up learning from these losses. That’s an if, yes, but I don’t believe it’s as big of an if as some might proclaim. Pavlovich learned from his first career loss to Alistair Overeem. Why wouldn’t he learn from these losses?

Perhaps I’m overlooking Rozenstruik, as I think my rhetoric makes it clear I believe Pavlovich will emerge successful. I can’t say exactly how many fights it would take for Pavlovich to earn his way to a title shot, but I’d be shocked if he never challenges for the belt. It’s not like there’s a lot of other options in the present or near future. My advice: Don’t sleep on the man.