The UFC has a fresh heavyweight knockout king.
Sergei Pavlovich flattened Curtis Blaydes by means of TKO at 3:08 of the primary around Saturday in the primary tournament of UFC Combat Evening in Las Vegas. Pavlovich has six instantly first-round KO/TKO victories, extending his personal modern day UFC document. He’s join for 2d with Don Frye for essentially the most consecutive KO/TKO stoppages in UFC historical past, at the back of best Chuck Liddell.
Pavlovich is averaging simply 2 mins, 23 seconds within the Octagon, the shortest ever amongst UFC heavyweights, in keeping with ESPN Stats & Knowledge analysis.
“Hey, where’s my belt?” Pavlovich stated via an interpreter in his postfight interview.
A name shot may surely be coming then. Coming in, ESPN had Pavlovich ranked Incorrect. 3 and Blaydes Incorrect. 4 on the planet at heavyweight.
Champion Jon Jones is predicted to safe his name then towards former champ Stipe Miocic nearest this future, despite the fact that a past has now not but been poised. Pavlovich may well be queued up for the winner or he may well be pitted towards some other contender in lieu than ready.
The large query round Saturday’s clash used to be whether or not Pavlovich may prevent Blaydes’ takedowns. Blaydes is an skillful wrestler with knockout energy of his personal. However Pavlovich briefly replied that. Blaydes didn’t even kill for a takedown till he used to be harm by way of a Pavlovich mixture, and issues best went downhill then that.
“Big respect to Curtis Blaydes,” Pavlovich stated. “He’s great. But somebody was saying he was going to easily take me down. What are they saying now?”
Pavlovich to begin with harm Blaydes with an overhand proper that dropped him. Nearest he closed in for extra. He wobbled Blaydes with a jab and adopted with an uppercut and large mixture. A proper hand put Blaydes ill for excellent, and Pavlovich adopted with punches at the garden till referee Marc Goddard restrained the bout.
Pavlovich (18-1) used to be coming off a knockout of Tai Tuivasa in 54 seconds. The Russian-born fighter misplaced his UFC debut to Alistair Overeem in 2018 however has now not misplaced since. Pavlovich, 30, is the previous heavyweight champion of Russia’s Combat Nights International promotion.
Blaydes (17-4, 1 NC) had a three-fight profitable streak snapped. The Chicago department local had misplaced best to energy punchers Francis Ngannou (two times) and Derrick Lewis up to now in his UFC profession. Blaydes, 32, has best misplaced as a professional by way of KO/TKO.
