This was revealed on another edition of The MMA Hour program by Briton Tom Aspinall, who will try to win the interim UFC championship belt in two weeks against the Russian knockout artist.
“We have a lot of people who talk a lot and then turn down fights left and right,” Aspinall said. “Look at Stipe. He turned down this fight. He’s the greatest heavyweight of all time, but he didn’t want to fight Sergey Pavlovich, who was the alternate in that fight. There are plenty of other people who avoided fighting Pavlovic, but I agreed to come out against him on two weeks notice. I did what no one else would dare to do.”
At the same time, the Briton considers the fight with the Russian as a full-fledged title fight, as both Americans were going to end their careers after the fight.
“I kind of promised to keep the secret, but the talk was that they would both finish their careers and Pavlovic and I would fight for the vacant title next year. Our fight was scheduled for early next year anyway”
The day before, news broke that the UFC is planning to hold a fight between Jon Jones and Stipe Miocic after the reigning champion, who tore a pectoral muscle, recovers from surgery. Early predictions are that Jones will be out for at least eight months.
As a reminder, the interim heavyweight title fight between Sergey Pavlovic and Tom Aspinall will be the second main event of UFC 295, headlined by welterweights Jiri Prochazka and Alex Pereira.