A heavyweight fight between Tai Tuivasa and Sergei Pavlovich has been booked for UFC On ESPN 42, which takes place in Orlando, Florida on December 3rd.
For the 29-year-old Tuivasa the fight will be his first since suffering a third round knockout loss against Ciryl Gane in the main event of UFC: Paris in early September.
That brought an end to an impressive five-fight winning streak for Tuivasa that had saw him KO Stefan Struve, Greg Hardy, Augusto Sakai and Derrick Lewis, while also TKO’ing Harry Hunsucker too.
As such, Tuivasa remains placed at No.4 in the heavyweight rankings heading into his next fight against Pavlovich, who is in the midst of his own winning streak, having now put together four victories in a row.
Like Tuivasa, Pavlovich’s run is made more impressive by the fact that he stopped each of his opponents inside the distance, with a KO win over Marcelo Golm in 2019 being followed by TKO finishes of Maurice Green and Shamil Abdurakhimov, before racking up another TKO finish against Derrick Lewis in his most high-profile fight to date in July.
Tuivasa vs. Pavlovich joins a UFC On ESPN 42 card that’s set to be headlined by Stephen Thompson vs. Kevin Holland, with other notable bouts including Derek Brunson vs Jack Hermansson, Rafael dos Anjos vs. Bryan Barberena and Clay Guida vs. Scott Holtzman.
