“My first wrestling suit was a regular suit. There is a baby elephant drawn in the center. Sergei Pavlovich wins UFC heavyweight belt

The title of the most dangerous man on the planet is usually given unofficially to the heavyweight champion of the UFC (or another dominant league). The winner of the Pavlovich-Aspinall fight has no obvious competitors yet. Initially, Jon Jones and Stipe Miocic were supposed to fight for the belt, but both dropped out due to injuries. Since the summer, Pavlovich was training to be one of the replacements in the fight for the title, but when both refused, Sergei was offered to challenge for the interim belt with Briton Tom Aspinall. It will all happen early in the morning of November 12 at UFC 295.

— Your manager, Rizvan Magomedov, didn’t believe the Jones-Miocic fight would happen. Did he express his doubts to you?

– No one can say that, maybe people have some kind of inner feeling, but I think it’s most likely a coincidence. I was 100% sure that Jon Jones and Stipe would fight. It seemed to me that this fight was already a pure affair.

— How did you prepare to face two opponents at once, knowing that you had to come into play and that you could replace one or the other in this fight?

– To be honest, we have done general work, because the basis is general anyway… and it is only in the last month that you are already doing special work. We trained calmly in a normal atmosphere, without increasing the pace.

— What changed when you were told that Tom Aspinall would be your opponent and that you would definitely fight. Have the coaches started paying attention to anything else?

“We resolved the problem for a long time, because we understood that sooner or later we would see each other again. And now they have already started doing special work, it’s just that now, instead of a month, it will take two or two and a half weeks.

– What must Tom Aspinall do on November 12 so that you don’t beat him?

– I think I should return the belt. My goal is the belt, this has been known for a long time.

— Have you ever won a UFC belt? Maybe at someone’s house? Maybe you have it in your hall?

“I have a tradition: You just take what’s yours.” When I was AMC Fight Nights champion, I loved having my belt, it warmed my soul.

—Who did you learn from that you would fight for the title?

“We were walking in the park, my manager Ali Abdel-Aziz called and told me such a happy thing.

— Was English enough to understand that?

— I’m training and there were Russian-speaking guys nearby who helped me translate.

– Are you happy? Worried?

– Yes, there is no particular excitement, I understand where I am going. Of course, when you have six months off and an opportunity like this, it’s like a New Year’s present. We have to go out and fight.

– “Maintain the strength and style he had in previous fights. Pressure, pressure, lack of space for the opponent to move” – this is the answer of Alexander Volkov, with whom you fought, when asked what advice he would give you.

– I don’t know, you have to think about it. On the one hand, this is in principle a suitable battle plan. But it still remains to be seen what he will do in the first round. Aspinall fully understands what awaits him, so I will see what he does, and then we will decide. As they say, we’ll go out into the cage and sort it out there. We each have our own preparations, and as the battle progresses, we understand whether our plan is going well or whether we need to engage differently.

– Does his jiu-jitsu bother you, and how do you evaluate your grappling?

— It seems that this is not my first day of MMA either, everything is fine, there are no problems. If you look, we have guys in the American Top Team gym that are at a very high level in jiu-jitsu. We adopt their experience.

– Another quote. Kamil Gadzhiev said: “In 2017, Seryoga was dragging badly on the ground.” Do you feel like you’ve improved a lot on the field over the past five years?

– Well, of course, you are in this industry and you have to understand that if you have gaps, you have to work on them. Because they will start to dismantle you, and you have to add to it the aspects where you see gaps. Sooner or later they will start looking at you and thinking about what can be done.

— Do you remember the last time you were surprised during a training session?

– To be honest, I don’t remember.

-So it’s not like a week ago you got caught in a rear choke or elbow lever?

– No, that didn’t happen. I haven’t caught it in a long time.

— Aspinall has great elbows and Artem Levin, a former elite Thai boxer, teaches at your gym. Did he give any advice specifically about elbows?

— The simplest reaction here is to keep your distance, not get closer. Artem and I work together all the time. There is also a wrestling coach, Steve Mocha, we watch the fights and we sort of draw up a picture, a strategy. We infer the opponent’s strengths and understand what needs to be emphasized more.

– Who will be in your corner?

— Andrey Klopnev, my friend and manager, Artem Levin, Steve Mocha and, eventually, Rizvan Magomedov.

— What song are you going to release on?

— The same song as last time, but now it will be even more relevant (“Fly on the wings of the wind” by Evgenia Sotnikova. — Note “”).

— Do you have at least one idea in mind in the last minutes before the fight?

— All thoughts appear when you practice. 2-3 months before the tournament. And when you are already at the tip of the iceberg, when much of the work has already been done, you understand that you are going out to do your job.

— Your first trainer, Alexander Aloyan, talked about how you trained in small rooms that had to be lit with candles. Do you remember these workouts?

– Yes, of course, I remember very well how we trained in our village. Alexander Fedorovich Aloyan, in addition to being a very good coach, is in principle such a strong guy who tried to explain to us some of the good things in life so that our heads work. I remember they even took me from kindergarten to train with him. Or, if I missed him, he could approach my father and say: “Where is Seryoga, why doesn’t he come?”

My first wrestling suit was a light colored T-shirt. As they are called – “alcoholic shirt”. Here in the center is a baby elephant. And where there was fabric, they sewed it together – and it turned out to be wrestling tights.

– And the wrestling shoes?

—And there were hardly any wrestling shoes. Do you remember those sneakers were white? They were wrestling shoes, and only the older guys wore regular ones. We lived in a small village (Orlovsky, Rostov region. – Note from ), there was not much funding, we could not travel for competitions.

— Another of your trainers, Nikolai Tokarev, who now works with you, told me that you pulled yourself three times while strapping yourself with 70 kg. Have you updated this file?

— But ask Nikolai, he is responsible for physical training. In fact, I can recommend him to everyone: an excellent, competent trainer. A very strong, very advanced specialist.

— You have been in the USA for quite a long time, but given your image, has anyone tried to joke: “Seryoga, you are already American”?

“There has never been such a conversation.” This subject was not even mentioned.

— Could you imagine receiving an American passport?

– No, I don’t see the point. A visa for 30 years, to travel without stress, [можно было бы]. Home is home, whatever anyone says. When your horizons broaden, you realize that there is a place that attracts you.

— How do you like living in the USA for so long?

— It’s convenient for me that it takes me 5 to 10 minutes to get to the lobby. There are always heavy weights in training. A good atmosphere so as not to be distracted from your work. You only focus on what you are doing now and where you are going.

-Who has been preparing food for you all this time? You order ?

– No, of course not, what are you talking about? How can you do without borscht?!

—Who cooks it in Florida?

– I am a family man.

—And you and your wife?

– Yes of course.

— Can you find all the ingredients for borscht?

– The main desire.

— What did your wife tell you when she found out you were fighting for the title?

– This question is inappropriate.

— Is there a date when you will return to Russia, given that you have been in the United States for quite a long time?

“I miss you very much, I want to take a little Russian land in my hands.” I won’t make any assumptions, but the battle will pass and I will have to return home.

— I heard there are a lot of crocodiles in Florida. Have you ever met?

— To be honest, apart from the gym, the house and a few walks, I don’t go anywhere else. Nothing has changed for me here, if we talk about the training process. And it’s continuous. After the fight, there may be two weeks of rest, but they pass quickly. I went to the ocean, swam a little and that’s it. And when you have such an intense training schedule, then even two weeks of rest means two weeks of eating, lying down, and then a very busy schedule starts again.

— Have you ever seen a person on vacation at a regular gym who could lift or pull more than you?

— I don’t monitor these indicators at all. I might have kept an eye on the scale before, but now I understand that it is not fundamentally important to me. I have slightly different priorities. I don’t even ask myself that question.

Live broadcasts of mixed martial arts tournaments can be seen on and Match! Fighter”, as well as on the sites matchtv.ru and sportbox.ru.