Russian knockout artist Sergey Pavlovic suffered an early defeat in his fight against Tom Aspinall because he focused too much on defense to the detriment of his offensive skills, former UFC middleweight and bantamweight title challenger Chel Sonnen believes.
“The one thing we all believed in was that Aspinall wouldn’t go into the exchange in the center of the octagon,” “American Gangster” said on another edition of his podcast. “‘He’d be a fool to do that,’ we said, but he came out and went into the exchanges and dropped Pavlovic. It was a really big surprise.”
“If you’re a young fighter and you’re watching this, remember once and for all that the best defense is offense. Tom was the first among Sergey’s last seven opponents who didn’t feel his power. I don’t know who hits harder, Tom, or Sergey, because Tom didn’t miss. Sergey didn’t throw punches because he was on defense, but offense is your best defense”
This past weekend at UFC 295 in New York City, Tom Aspinall won the interim UFC heavyweight championship belt by knocking out Sergey Pavlovic as early as the 69th second. The organization made the decision to play out the interim title after the division’s reigning champion, Jon Jones, suffered an injury and pulled out of his bout against Stipe Miocic to headline the numbered event.
Source: https://fighttime.ru/news/item/33169-sonnen-nazval-rokovuyu-oshibku-pavlovicha-v-boyu-s-aspinallom.html?rand=19907
