The Ultimate Fighting Championship is back with us tonight, April 22, 2023, for UFC Vegas 71, from the Apex Center in Enterprise, Nevada.
The event was headlined by a heavyweight match between no. Ranked 3, former FNG Champion Sergey Pavlovich (17-1) and no. Rank 4 Curtis Blades (17-3, 1 NC).
This was a very meaningful affair that might have announced the next contender for the UFC Heavyweight Championship.
Pavlovic, after defeating Alistair Overeem in his promotional debut in 2018, has since won his last five matches in a row, all via first-round knockout. Blaydes, on the other hand, came into the match on a three-fight winning streak, going 7-1 in his last eight fights, losing only to former heavyweight champions Francis Ngannou and Derrick Lewis in a fight in which he looked cool until he caught him.
Of Pavlović’s 17 wins, 14 have come by knockouts with three decisions, while of the Blades’ 17 wins have come by knockouts with five decisions. What’s more, of the four defeats combined, all four were by knockouts. Both of these men are knockout artists with a combined record of 34-4, and not a single fight ends in submission.
Read on to see how this heavyweight main event went down:
Official result: Sergei Pavlovich defeated. Curtis Blaydes via TKO (punches) at 3:08 of the first round
Both men unleashed a swinging heavy leather bout in complete disregard for the strength of the others. Holds both of her chins for the first few minutes, until Pavlovic drops Blaydes with a right hand raise.
Blaydes gets right back on his feet immediately afterwards, but gets crackled shortly afterwards which hurts him terribly.
Pavlovich lands another powerful jab that Blades trips up again, followed by a combination of punches that then knocks him down. A few punches later and the referee had to stop the action.
Pavlovich was very accurate tonight, he looked really cool in that performance.
Sergey Pavlovich makes it six goals in the first round in a row. You gotta feel bad for Curtis Blades: It’s the third time he’s been KOed in a potential Eliminations title #UFCVegas71 pic.twitter.com/PSSEtv3291
– Shakiel Mahjouri (@Shak_Fu) April 23, 2023
Sergey Pavlovich is now 18-1 as a pro with 15 wins by knockout. He improved his first-round knockout streak to six consecutive tonight at UFC Vegas 71, the longest in UFC history.
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I became a fan of combat sports when I was 12 years old. I was scrolling through the channels and landed on Versus, which is where WEC was televised. Uriah Faber fought Jens Pulver for the second time that night. This is the first fight I saw, and the fight that got me hooked on the sport. Since then, the sport has grown very quickly, and my goal is to make everyone aware of what is going on in the sport today.