Curtis
Blaydes and Sergei
Pavlovich have agreed to a five-round heavyweight bout to
headline UFC Fight Night on April 22.
Advertisement
ESPN was first to report the pairing. UFC Fight Night does not
yet have an official location or venue. The card is also expected
to include a bantamweight scrap between Yadong Song
and Ricky
Simon, a lightweight tilt between Bobby Green
and Jared
Gordon and a featherweight showdown between Norma Dumon and
Karol
Rosa.
Blaydes has lost just once in his last eight appearances – a
second-round KO defeat to Derrick
Lewis at UFC Fight Night 185 in February 2021. His last bout
ended prematurely when Tom
Aspinall suffered a knee injury 15 seconds into their encounter
at UFC Fight Night 208 this past July. The Elevation Fight Team
representative’s resume includes wins over the likes of Chris
Daukaus, Jairzinho
Rozenstruik, Alexander
Volkov, Junior dos
Santos, Alistair
Overeem and Mark Hunt.
Pavlovich has been victorious in five straight UFC bouts after
falling to Overeem in his debut. The 30-year-old Russian has
finished all of his opponents inside of a round during that stretch
– including a 54-second stoppage of Tai Tuivasa
in his last outing at UFC on ESPN 42.