Alexander Volkov beats Sergei Pavlovich to maintain longest active UFC heavyweight win streak

Sergei Pavlovich and Alexander Volkov, two heavyweight competitors in the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), went all out inside Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

After losing by knockout to Tom Aspinall (14-4 MMA) at UFC 295 in November in an interim heavyweight title match for the promotion, Pavlovich was hoping to bounce back in the win column. The 32-year-old’s six-fight winning streak was ended by the defeat; each of his six prior victories came via knockout or technical knockout. Alexander Volkov, meanwhile, came into the Octagon on a three-fight winning run. His most recent victory came by submission over Tai Tuivasa at UFC 293 .Previous to that, “Drago” defeated Alexander Romanov and Jairzinho Rozenstruik by TKO.

Volkov had a brilliant display and won the striking duel. This fight was not initiated with a startling Pavlovich blitz. The early exchanges were more patient than expected, despite his insistence. With an active left leg, Volkov gained the early advantage and timed Pavlovich’s pressure forward well with his jab. Although Pavlovich netted a few strong shots of his own, “Drago” was the more successful striker in the opening set.

Into the second, Volkov was still able to really dictate distance. He was consistently poking Pavlovich with something, skillfully stringing his punches and kicks together. Though he wasn’t throwing enough or hard enough to compensate for his lack of volume, Pavlovich did land from time to time. By the conclusion of the second, Pavlovich’s nose was bleeding, his eye was swelling rapidly, and his lead leg was bruised. In other words, with just five minutes left, Pavlovich’s back was against the wall. Kudos to Pavlovich for starting to exert more effort and pressure in the third. His lengthier combos allowed him to land more frequently. But “Drago” didn’t back down, holding his position and answering with strong jabs of his own. Pavlovich eventually gave up and began to wrestle late in the battle, but it had little effect.

Overall, Pavlovich performed better in this round, but not enough to win. After Volkov connected with a crisp high kick to end the round, the judges unanimously chose to support him.

Even though they were partners for a while, Volkov spoke to his 32-year-old opponent as “a friend,” according to play-by-play commentator Jon Anik, while Pavlovich considered Volkov as “an acquaintance”. According to official UFC statistics, Volkov won by unanimous decision after landing 83 big blows compared to Pavlovich’s 46.

Sergei Pavlovich was a heavy favourite heading into this weekend’s UFC event in Saudi Arabia, but he was unable to get going against Alexander Volkov. He swung wildly from outside of range as “Drago” took him apart with massive punches. The hard-hitting Russian juggernaut really put on a somewhat lacklustre show, landing just 46 noteworthy strikes throughout the entire 15 minutes.

Following his unfortunate loss against his fellow countryman in a unanimous vote, Palovich has now gone to social media to make his first remark.

“It wasn’t my day; nothing went as planned,” he began, then acknowledged that he had let his team’s well crafted gameplan to be sidelined by the need to secure yet another viral knockout.

“I was prepared for anything, but I took too many unwarranted strikes because I was too preoccupied with achieving a knockout. The outcome was a point loss. I had a lot of emotions during this, and it was difficult for me since I knew I had fallen short of your expectations.”