Sergei Pavlovich's hot streak keeps on sizzling.
The surging heavyweight contender earned the biggest win of his career Saturday night, defeating Curtis Blaydes via TKO at the 3:08 mark of the first round in the UFC Fight Night main event in Las Vegas.
Pavlovich set up the finish with a hard right uppercut, another right hand, and a left, sending Blaydes to his knees. He followed up with a few shots on the ground and forced the referee to intervene.
Afterward, Pavlovich expressed interest in a shot at heavyweight champion Jon Jones.
"Where's my belt?" Pavlovich said in his postfight interview.
The pivotal UFC Apex bout started at a furious pace. Pavlovich and Blaydes were more than willing to engage with each other on the feet, and, in the end, Pavlovich's trademark power got him the victory. Blaydes connected on a few punches early in the fight, and then Pavlovich briefly dropped him with a right hand. He wobbled Blaydes again later in the round before finishing him off with the barrage of strikes.
Blaydes is known for his wrestling and attempted one half-hearted takedown in the fight, but Pavlovich stayed upright.
"Somebody was saying that he was going to easily take me down," Pavlovich said. "What are you going to say now?"
With the victory, Pavlovich extended his own modern UFC record for most consecutive first-round finishes (six). He dropped his opponent in each of those bouts and is the eighth fighter in UFC history to score knockdowns in six straight contests.
The No. 3-ranked heavyweight, a native of Russia, is now 6-1 in the UFC and 18-1 as a professional.
Blaydes, ranked No. 4, saw his three-fight winning streak come to an end. This was his first loss since a second-round knockout to Derrick Lewis in February 2021 and his first defeat in the first round since a rematch with Francis Ngannou in November 2018.
