According to the winner of the sixth UFC championship, his compatriot was too afraid of his opponent’s struggle, so he was not able to fully open up in the standup and show his best qualities.
“I had suspicions that this fight would not turn out well,” the Russian said in a video posted on social media. “We wish Sergey good luck, but if he wants to stay in this, he still has to go the way of Sasha Volkov. Now to recover his head for six months and learn how to fight. Explaining why.”
“What did we see after Pavlovic’s first series? He didn’t run to finish because he didn’t believe Aspinall was shaken, stepped back, took his distance, and continued. I, after finding out that Aspinall was training with Tyson Fury, I can’t say he was shocked because Tyson Fury can teach you how to portray a hoser himself as well”
“Next, Aspinall worked not shuttle back and forth, but up and down – point to the feet, punch to the head, point to the head, pretend to pass to the feet. That’s how he got Sergei all worked up and he forgot that he had to protect his head as well. Aspinall showed a pass to the legs, but he threw two accurate punches that hit the target”
Taktarov is convinced that Pavlovic should not rush his return to the octagon and should take a break to recover from the knockout and tighten his wrestling skills.
“As I said, now he has to go the way of Volkov – that’s six months of recovering from the damage, rebuilding his head so he doesn’t have a crunching jaw, and then doing work in the parterre so you don’t have to be afraid. And in order not to be afraid, you have to fight ten fights with ten opponents for ten minutes each”
Recall that the heavyweight title fight was the second most important event of the UFC 295 tournament, which took place at the famous Madison Square Garden Arena in New York.