[autotag]Tai Tuivasa[/autotag] tasted [autotag]Sergei Pavlovich[/autotag]’s power right off the bat.
Tuivasa (15-5 MMA, 8-5 UFC) was knocked out by Pavlovich in just 54 seconds at UFC on ESPN 42 last December. The loss to Pavlovich marked his second straight by knockout, after “Bam Bam” was stopped by Ciryl Gane in an all out war just three months prior in Paris.
Tuivasa acknowledges that he probably should have taken some more time off after losing to Gane, but said things just happened so fast during the fight against Pavlovich.
“That one, I was maybe a bit rushed,” Tuivasa said on The Halfcast Podcast. “But I still trained hard. The camp was all right – I was fit. Really, all that fight was down to was who hit who first. And I was obviously trying to hit him first, but he hit me with the first hit and I knew I was f*cked.
“I was just like, ‘F*cking hell.’ Then I come back and I tried to throw another big hit and then I did like, a 360-(degree) spin. I was like, ‘That is not what my head wanted.’ I was already dizzy and then did a full spin. Then it was just I hoped something hit him.”
Tuivasa never got a chance to get going, but says Pavlovich’s power is as advertised. The 31-year-old Russian has knocked out his past six opponents in a row in the first round.
“He hits hard. … You hear about his reach,” Tuivasa said. “He hits you from very far away where you think you’re in that zone, but you’re not, and he is. Obviously, he’s got some heavy hands behind it, and once he smells it, he can smell the blood and he just goes for it. I want him again. I didn’t get to hit him. That’s the heavyweight game. My eyes were like, ‘Where are you? Which one is it?'”
Tuivasa will look to rebound when he meets Alexander Volkov (36-10 MMA, 10-4 UFC) in the UFC 293 co-headliner on Sept. 9 at Qudos Bank Arena in Sydney. The main card airs on pay-per-view following prelims expected on ESPN and ESPN+.
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For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 293.