Sergei Pavlovich was a terrific athlete growing up in Russia. He played a lot of basketball, dabbled in handball and in wrestling. But the one thing that was pretty certain from a young age is that he was going to fight. His environment almost demanded it.
ORLANDO, FLORIDA - DECEMBER 03: Sergei Pavlovich of Russia reacts after his TKO victory over Tai Tuivasa of Australia in a heavyweight fight during the UFC Fight Night event at Amway Center on December 03, 2022 in Orlando, Florida.
"We grew up in the kind of place where you constantly had to fight for yourself, fight for your rights," Pavlovich told Yahoo Sports."You had to be able to be strong. You had to be a strong person in order to survive there. So fighting was pretty much in my soul and in my spirit when I was growing up."
But they are remarkably similar. Pavlovich is 31 years old with an 18-1 record and 15 knockouts. Aspinall is 30 years old with a 13-3 record and 10 knockouts. Aspinall is 6-5, so a bit taller than Pavlovich, though Pavlovich has an 84-78-inch advantage in reach. Both weigh in right around 260. "I always knew that we'd eventually meet ," Pavlovich said."Of course, I wasn't expecting it when I , but I knew it was going to occur at some point and I think Tom would say the same thing."
Pavlovich has torn through the opposition since the loss to Overeem. He said he learned more from that fight than any other but was reluctant to talk much about it. He didn't want to come off like he was making an excuse, but the fight was in Beijing and said he didn't arrive nearly early enough. While Aspinall may be the better pure striker, Aspinall likely is better on the ground. But Pavlovich trained at the American Kickboxing Academy in San Jose, California, for a while and two of the heavyweights he used to roll with were former UFC champions: Cain Velasquez and Daniel Cormier.
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