Exclusive: Sergei Pavlovich 'respects' Tom Aspinall's power but has sights on achieving 'great goal' at UFC 295

Sergei Pavlovich is readying himself to take on Tom Aspinall at UFC 295 in New York on Saturday and is primed to achieve his “great goal” of becoming UFC champion.

The 31-year-old feels the bout with Aspinall is “one last step” to fulfilling what he set out to achieve many years ago, with a life’s worth of work coming down to the fight on November 11, from Madison Square Garden.

“The greatest feelings possible you can think about and I have this opportunity now,” he told TNT Sports.

“I think that our life is made up of goals, right? Goals that you set for yourself and goals that you eventually achieve. It feels great to achieve specific goals.

“I have one goal, reach another goal, a third, and now all of my goals have come together to this one great goal of becoming a champion and now I finally have the opportunity to do this.

“I feel my life was not wasted, I’ve done all these things to get to here, and now this is one last step.”

Pavlovich was already on standby ahead of Jon Jones’ scheduled bout with Stipe Miocic, but the latter pulled out when Jones withdrew due to injury.

Having missed the opportunity to face 41-year-old Miocic, Pavlovich remains is now focused on toppling Aspinall.

“Of course, it would have been great to fight one of the legends of the sport in Stipe Miocic but the most important thing is the goal and that’s the belt,” he said.

On Saturday’s opponent Aspinall and their contrasting qualities, Pavlovich added: “Tom is a great fighter. He’s a very good fighter, he’s good at his stand-up, he’s very good at his ground, so I respect that, I respect his power.

“The fact is, I’m not going to talk for myself. People have to asses what my skills are, what my level of fighting is, so there’s not too much to talk about.

“On Saturday we’re going to fight, the octagon will close behind us and we’ll see.”

Pavlovich holds an 18-1 professional record and has terrorised the heavyweight division over the last few years with six consecutive knockouts.

Now, the Russian has a shot at the interim heavyweight title belt and says he learned plenty from his only defeat to Alistair Overeem in 2018.

“I’m not going to make any excuses, a loss is a loss,” he said of his defeat in China five years ago. “Professionalism is in everything.

“I can’t tell you I was approaching the fight unprofessionally when it came to camp or training, I was still working hard to prepare for the fight but the fact is, I realised this was my job I do on a daily basis.

“This is something I make my living at, so I have to approach every aspect of this job a certain way. Basically just looking at things more professionally, well-rounded and all aspects of the fight.

“When it comes to knockout power, I first discovered this on the street when I was younger. I would hit someone and they would go down, and I would realise that I possess a certain type of power in my hands.

“But I always respected it. Even through my amateur career and everything, I would work really, really hard to sharpen my skills and to stay disciplined. It was never power for the matter of knocking people out, it was skill. So I had to add skills to the power.

“When you knock someone out and they go down you’re happy about it, but you can never plan a knockout, I always say that. You cannot plan for a knockout, it happens unexpectedly. But of course, it’s a great feeling.”

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