A heavyweight fight between Sergei Pavlovich and Waldo Cortes-Acosta has been announced for UFC Fight Night 257 in Shanghai, China on August 23rd.
The 33-year-old Pavlovich made a big impact in the heavyweight division early in his UFC run when he went on a six-fight winning streak, with every victory coming via strikes in the first round, including TKO’ing Curtis Blaydes and Derrick Lewis along with a knockout win over Tai Tuivasa.
However, when an interim heavyweight title shot arrived in 2023, Pavlovich suffered a 69 second KO loss to Tom Aspinall, and then last year was beaten on the scorecards by Alexander Volkov.
Pavlovich has started this year off on better terms though with a unanimous decision victory over Jairzinho Rozenstruik, which means he holds the No.4 spot on the heavyweight rankings heading into his next fight.
The 33-year-old Cortes-Acosta was originally recruited from the Contender Series back in 2022 and has since made a very good account of himself in the heavyweight ranks, going 7-1 overall so far.
That includes his current five-fight winning streak, during which he’s beaten the likes of Andrei Arlovski, Ryan Spann and most recently Sergey Spivac just a couple of weeks ago at UFC 316 to reach No.7 in the rankings.
Pavlovich vs. Cortes-Acosta joins a UFC Fight Night 257 card that’s set to be headlined by a light-heavyweight bout between Johny Walker and Zhang Mingyang.
