Sergei Pavlovich vs. Sergey Spivak vs. Alexander Romanov

Are they top three in the world currently?

Obviously not.

Romanov struggled with Espino, and looked pretty bad in his loss against Tybura.

The idea that Romanov shed weight and was therefore an efficient heavyweight killer just never happened.

Spivac got absolutely murdered by Tom Aspinall, and was never in the fight.

Pavlovich is the closest to winning the title, he is definitely a monster, but I think he matches up horribly with Blaydes to be honest.

So yeah.

All of them are good, very talented, and a reasonable age. Right now they're all top 10 UFC heavyweights, Pavlovich is probably top 5, but they all have quite a bit to work on.
 
Romanov would be amazing if he had more than five minutes of cardio. Seeing him ragdoll Tybura and then gas was frustrating.
 
Romanov has the most upside he is an absolute beast, but gas is a problem.

Pavlovich is going to fight for the title this year for sure.
 
Romanov is massively overrated compared to the other two if you ask me. His resume on the regional scene was padded with can-crushers (making Alexander himself a can-crusher-crusher, I guess?). It wasn't until his ninth pro fight that he finally fought someone reasonably worthwhile and that was Virgil Zwicker: a veteran of Strikeforce, KSW, and Bellator. Zwicker has a couple of decent wins like Houston Alexander and OSP... but he was past his prime and a bloated Light Heavyweight striker coming off a KO loss to Alexander Emelianenko at the time of the Romanov fight. Once Romanov made it to the UFC, his level of competition wasn't much better:
  • Roque Martinez: Lol.
  • Marcos Rogerio de Lima: Another bloated 205er. Black Belt he probably got out of a Happy Meal or cereal box. Gas tank just as bad as Romanov's. Fights with an "explosive first-round knockout flurry or bust" gameplan every time.
  • Jared Vanderaa: Lol.
  • Chase Sherman: One-dimensional kickboxer with zero grappling who has looked decidedly unexceptional ever since getting off the sauce. Doesn't even have that much power for a Heavyweight.
Then he fought Juan Espino and we saw Romanov's true measure as he struggled immensely against someone that he couldn't bully with the grappling and who had serviceable striking. Dude was arguably on his way to losing that fight if not for the point deduction and subsequent Technical Decision. Espino took him down multiple times and controlled him for a not-insignificant amount of time.

People will say stuff like "Yeah, but Espino is a super-dangerous and legit prospect!" I don't really agree. Yeah, Juan is skilled and he possesses tools that a lot of Heavyweights don't... but I think people get fixated on his novelty factor more than what he has actually displayed inside the cage. He's an inactive and fairly inexperienced unranked grappler that's over 40 years old. His time passed a long time ago. The moment I saw Romanov struggle so badly badly against him, I knew that maybe the guy wasn't as advertised... which is why I picked Tybura -- the more proven commodity -- to score the upset (though IMO that fight probably should have been a Draw).

Romanov has potential to improve, but compared to the massive hype that has been piled on him... he's nowhere near it at the moment if you ask me. There are several guys in the division right now that would body him. He has to make huge improvements to his cardio and striking. Some have even suggested cutting down to 205, which I'm on the fence about... but who knows?

***

As for the other two:
  • Spivak has made legitimate improvements from being "nondescript decent-but-nothing-special unranked Sambo dude" to being a legitimately dangerous Top 10 contender. He's fairly big and seems physically quite strong and he is able to ragdoll massive Heavyweights. In addition to Spivak's own technical proficiency, I think a big part of this is the fact that most Heavyweights don't grapple all that well to begin with. On top of that, Sergey utilizes upper-body throws and Judo sweeps which many fighters -- Heavyweights in particular, I imagine -- don't really put much time into learning how to defend or even have many training partners to help simulate. This is in contrast to the availability of freestyle/folkstyle wrestlers that come in to assist with camps by giving fighters false confidence in their TDD by focusing solely against double-legs and the like. Spivak has also made major strides with his striking and now possesses a surprisingly effective jab which he showed off to good effect against Sakai in his previous bout. He has shown improvements in blending these enhanced boxing fundamentals with his clinch, takedowns, and subsequent GnP which in turn opens up opportunistic submissions... really a pretty scary total package. Part of me wonders if maybe this is just me being oversold by a guy who's finally caught a lucky break and is now preying on a spate of the easiest of the ranked/adjacent contenders (Oleinik, Hardy, Sakai, skidding Lewis)... I'm willing to admit this might be the case, but honestly if you just look at the guy's confidence and the way he executes certain techniques he seems to possess certain intangibles that he didn't back when he was fighting the likes of Carlos Felipe and Walt Harris. Not sure how far he goes, but I could see him potentially cracking fringe Top 5 at this rate.
  • I've said very nice things about Pavlovich in the past. I agree with @HuskySamoan's assessment that he might low-key have some of the best boxing in the division, but people simply don't pick up on it because he looks so robotic in how he throws his strikes. The guy was calmly shoulder-rolling and dipping counters from Bam Bam like he was playing a friendly game of dodgeball. Most of the time he doesn't even need to do that because his understanding of distance management and range are insanely good. The only guy who can match him in that regard in the division is probably Gane if you ask me. The bell sounds, Pavlovich marches out to meet his opponent, finds a range at which his comically long orangutan arms can hurt them but the opposite is not true... and then proceeds to uncork a volley from the depths of hell while having ultimate confidence that their punches will fall short. You can see this in both the Lewis & Tuivasa bouts where he is just swinging away and when both men desperately try to fire back thinking they're in the pocket, only to find air. He is very disciplined and has great killer instinct, always maintaining that safe range even when he has his opponent badly hurt -- but he's aggressive as fuck all the same. He seems to be capable of hurting guys even with those weird shovel hooks that look like shitty little arm punches, which he usually uses on guys once they're doubled over and compromised. That said, I am not ready to ride or die with him for a few reasons. One: the vast majority of his wins are first-round stoppages (including all of them in the UFC), so his cardio is still a bit untested... though he does have some regional scene victories that went to three and even five-round Decisions. Two: Reem badly exposed his defensive grappling in his debut. Maybe he's shored up that hole since then. Three: we've only ever seen him be the nail one time against Reem and the hammer five times since. Never anywhere in between where he's had to suffer through adversity in a hard fight and push through to find a win. I think he has all the makings of a great fighter (especially since he comes from a grappling base!), but he still has things to show me.

If had to arrange them in terms of who I think shows most talent and could go the farthest in the division, it would probably be:

1.) Pavlovich
2.) Spivak
3.) Romanov

I hesitated about putting Pavlovich above Spivak due to the potential hole in his defensive grappling game, but I have to believe that can be worked out or potentially already has been. It was a long-ass time ago in his UFC debut in a fight that he was probably expecting to be a striking match. The guy comes from a robust grappling pedigree himself, trains with strong wrestlers like Romanov, and actually used to employ takedowns of his own back on the regional scene. He has looked otherwise unstoppable.

Conversely, Spivak has been hit-or-miss throughout his UFC tenure and even though I believe he's made improvements, there were frames of the Sakai and Oleinik fights that were reasonably competitive. Likewise, Aspinall showed him levels in pretty brutal fashion not too long ago (though that was on short notice admittedly). He has potential, but I need to see a bit more before I'm sold on ranking him over Pavlovich.

Romanov is an easy follower to these other two.
 
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Safton said:
Romanov is massively overrated compared to the other two if you ask me. His resume on the regional scene was padded with can-crushers (making Alexander himself a can-crusher-crusher, I guess?). It wasn't until his ninth pro fight that he finally fought someone reasonably worthwhile and that was Virgil Zwicker: a veteran of Strikeforce, KSW, and Bellator. Zwicker has a couple of decent wins like Houston Alexander and OSP... but he was past his prime and a bloated Light Heavyweight striker coming off a KO loss to Alexander Emelianenko at the time of the Romanov fight. Once Romanov made it to the UFC, his level of competition wasn't much better:
  • Roque Martinez: Lol.
  • Marcos Rogerio de Lima: Another bloated 205er. Happy Meal Black Belt. Gas tank just as bad as Romanov's. Fights with a "explosive first-round knockout flurry or bust" gameplan every time.
  • Jared Vanderaa: Lol.
  • Chase Sherman: One-dimensional kickboxer with zero grappling who has looked decidedly unexceptional ever since getting off the sauce. Doesn't even have that much power for a Heavyweight.
Then he fought Juan Espino and we saw Romanov's true measure as he struggled immensely against someone that he couldn't bully with the grappling and who had serviceable striking. Dude was arguably on his way to losing that fight if not for the point deduction and subsequent Technical Decision. Espino took him down multiple times and controlled him for a not-insignificant amount of time.

People will say stuff like "Yeah, but Espino is a super-dangerous and legit prospect!" I don't really agree. Yeah, he's skilled and he possesses tools that a lot of Heavyweights don't but I think people get fixated on his novelty factor more than what he has actually displayed. He's an inactive and fairly inexperienced unranked grappler that's over 40 years old. His time passed a long time ago. The moment I saw Romanov struggle so badly badly against him, I knew that maybe the guy wasn't as advertised... which is why I picked Tybura -- the more proven commodity -- to score the upset (though IMO that fight probably should have been a Draw).

Romanov has potential to improve, but compared to the massive hype that has been piled on him... he's nowhere near it at the moment if you ask me. There are several guys in the division right now that would body him. He has to make huge improvements to his cardio and striking. Some have even suggested cutting down to 205, which I'm on the fence about but who knows?

***

As for the other two:
  • Spivak has made legitimate improvements from being "nondescript decent-but-nothing-special unranked Sambo dude" to being a legitimately dangerous Top 10 contender. He's fairly big and seems physically quite strong and he is able to ragdoll massive Heavyweights. In addition to Spivak's own technical proficiency, I think a big part of this is the fact that most Heavyweights don't grapple all that well to begin with. On top of that, Sergey utilizes upper-body throws and Judo sweeps which many fighters -- Heavyweights in particular, I imagine -- don't really put much time into learning how to defend or even have many training partners to help simulate. This is in contrast to the availability of freestyle/folkstyle wrestlers that come in to assist with camps by giving fighters false confidence in their TDD by focusing solely against double-legs and the like. Spivak has also made major strides with his striking and now possesses a surprisingly effective jab which he showed off to good effect against Sakai in his previous bout. He has shown improvements in blending these enhanced boxing fundamentals with his clinch, takedowns, and subsequent GnP which in turn opens up opportunistic submissions... really a pretty scary total package. Part of me wonders if maybe this is just me being oversold by a guy who's finally caught a lucky break and is now preying on a spate of the easiest of the ranked/adjacent contenders (Oleinik, Hardy, Sakai, skidding Lewis)... I'm willing to admit this might be the case, but honestly if you just look at the guy's confidence and the way he executes certain techniques he seems to possess certain intangibles that he didn't back when he was fighting the likes of Carlos Felipe and Walt Harris. Not sure how far he goes, but I could see him potentially cracking fringe Top 5 at this rate.
  • I've said very nice things about Pavlovich in the past. I agree with @HuskySamoan's assessment that he might low-key have some of the best boxing in the division, but people simply don't pick up on it because he looks so robotic in how he throws his strikes. The guy was calmly shoulder-rolling and dipping counters from Bam Bam like he was playing a friendly game of dodgeball. Most of the time he doesn't even need to do that because his understanding of distance management and range are insanely good. The only guy who can match him in that regard in the division is probably Gane if you ask me. The bell sounds, Pavlovich marches out to meet his opponent, finds a range at which his comically long orangutan arms can hurt them but the opposite is not true... and then proceeds to uncork a volley from the depths of hell while having ultimate confidence that their punches will fall short. You can see this in both the Lewis & Tuivasa bouts where he is just swinging away and when both men desperately try to fire back thinking they're in the pocket, only to find air. He is very disciplined and has great killer instinct, always maintaining that safe range even when he has his opponent badly hurt -- but he's aggressive as fuck all the same. He seems to be capable of hurting guys even with those weird shovel hooks that look like shitty little arm punches, which he usually uses on guys once they're doubled over and compromised. That said, I am not ready to ride or die with him for a few reasons. One: the vast majority of his wins are first-round stoppages (including all of them in the UFC), so his cardio is still a bit untested... though he does have some regional scene victories that went to three and even five-round Decisions. Two: Reem badly exposed his defensive grappling in his debut. Maybe he's shored up that hole since then. Three: we've only ever seen him be the nail one time against Reem and the hammer five times since. Never anywhere in between where he's had to suffer through adversity in a hard fight and push through to find a win. I think he has all the makings of a great fighter (especially since he comes from a grappling base!), but he still has things to show me.
Click to expand...
Great analysis! Very thorough.
 
Siver! said:
Are they top three in the world currently?

Obviously not.

Romanov
Click to expand...
Safton said:
Romanov is massively overrated compared to the other two if you ask me. His resume on the regional scene was padded with can-crushers (making Alexander himself a can-crusher-crusher, I guess?). It wasn't until his ninth pro fight that he finally fought someone reasonably worthwhile and that was Virgil Zwicker: a veteran of Strikeforce, KSW, and Bellator. Zwicker has a couple of decent wins like Houston Alexander and OSP... but he was past his prime and a bloated Light Heavyweight striker coming off a KO loss to Alexander Emelianenko at the time of the Romanov fight. Once Romanov made it to the UFC, his level of competition wasn't much better:
  • Roque Martinez: Lol.
  • Marcos Rogerio de Lima: Another bloated 205er. Happy Meal Black Belt. Gas tank just as bad as Romanov's. Fights with a "explosive first-round knockout flurry or bust" gameplan every time.
  • Jared Vanderaa: Lol.
  • Chase Sherman: One-dimensional kickboxer with zero grappling who has looked decidedly unexceptional ever since getting off the sauce. Doesn't even have that much power for a Heavyweight.
Then he fought Juan Espino and we saw Romanov's true measure as he struggled immensely against someone that he couldn't bully with the grappling and who had serviceable striking. Dude was arguably on his way to losing that fight if not for the point deduction and subsequent Technical Decision. Espino took him down multiple times and controlled him for a not-insignificant amount of time.

People will say stuff like "Yeah, but Espino is a super-dangerous and legit prospect!" I don't really agree. Yeah, he's skilled and he possesses tools that a lot of Heavyweights don't but I think people get fixated on his novelty factor more than what he has actually displayed. He's an inactive and fairly inexperienced unranked grappler that's over 40 years old. His time passed a long time ago. The moment I saw Romanov struggle so badly badly against him, I knew that maybe the guy wasn't as advertised... which is why I picked Tybura -- the more proven commodity -- to score the upset (though IMO that fight probably should have been a Draw).

Romanov has potential to improve, but compared to the massive hype that has been piled on him... he's nowhere near it at the moment if you ask me. There are several guys in the division right now that would body him. He has to make huge improvements to his cardio and striking. Some have even suggested cutting down to 205, which I'm on the fence about but who knows?

***

As for the other two:
  • Spivak has made legitimate improvements from being "nondescript decent-but-nothing-special unranked Sambo dude" to being a legitimately dangerous Top 10 contender. He's fairly big and seems physically quite strong and he is able to ragdoll massive Heavyweights. In addition to Spivak's own technical proficiency, I think a big part of this is the fact that most Heavyweights don't grapple all that well to begin with. On top of that, Sergey utilizes upper-body throws and Judo sweeps which many fighters -- Heavyweights in particular, I imagine -- don't really put much time into learning how to defend or even have many training partners to help simulate. This is in contrast to the availability of freestyle/folkstyle wrestlers that come in to assist with camps by giving fighters false confidence in their TDD by focusing solely against double-legs and the like. Spivak has also made major strides with his striking and now possesses a surprisingly effective jab which he showed off to good effect against Sakai in his previous bout. He has shown improvements in blending these enhanced boxing fundamentals with his clinch, takedowns, and subsequent GnP which in turn opens up opportunistic submissions... really a pretty scary total package. Part of me wonders if maybe this is just me being oversold by a guy who's finally caught a lucky break and is now preying on a spate of the easiest of the ranked/adjacent contenders (Oleinik, Hardy, Sakai, skidding Lewis)... I'm willing to admit this might be the case, but honestly if you just look at the guy's confidence and the way he executes certain techniques he seems to possess certain intangibles that he didn't back when he was fighting the likes of Carlos Felipe and Walt Harris. Not sure how far he goes, but I could see him potentially cracking fringe Top 5 at this rate.
  • I've said very nice things about Pavlovich in the past. I agree with @HuskySamoan's assessment that he might low-key have some of the best boxing in the division, but people simply don't pick up on it because he looks so robotic in how he throws his strikes. The guy was calmly shoulder-rolling and dipping counters from Bam Bam like he was playing a friendly game of dodgeball. Most of the time he doesn't even need to do that because his understanding of distance management and range are insanely good. The only guy who can match him in that regard in the division is probably Gane if you ask me. The bell sounds, Pavlovich marches out to meet his opponent, finds a range at which his comically long orangutan arms can hurt them but the opposite is not true... and then proceeds to uncork a volley from the depths of hell while having ultimate confidence that their punches will fall short. You can see this in both the Lewis & Tuivasa bouts where he is just swinging away and when both men desperately try to fire back thinking they're in the pocket, only to find air. He is very disciplined and has great killer instinct, always maintaining that safe range even when he has his opponent badly hurt -- but he's aggressive as fuck all the same. He seems to be capable of hurting guys even with those weird shovel hooks that look like shitty little arm punches, which he usually uses on guys once they're doubled over and compromised. That said, I am not ready to ride or die with him for a few reasons. One: the vast majority of his wins are first-round stoppages (including all of them in the UFC), so his cardio is still a bit untested... though he does have some regional scene victories that went to three and even five-round Decisions. Two: Reem badly exposed his defensive grappling in his debut. Maybe he's shored up that hole since then. Three: we've only ever seen him be the nail one time against Reem and the hammer five times since. Never anywhere in between where he's had to suffer through adversity in a hard fight and push through to find a win. I think he has all the makings of a great fighter (especially since he comes from a grappling base!), but he still has things to show me.

If had to arrange them in terms of who I think shows most talent and could go the farthest in the division, it would probably be:

1.) Pavlovich
2.) Spivak
3.) Romanov

I hesitated about putting Pavlovich above Spivak due to the potential hole in his defensive grappling game, but I have to believe that can be worked out or potentially already has been. It was a long-ass time ago in his UFC debut in a fight that he was probably expecting to be a striking match. The guy comes from a robust grappling pedigree himself, trains with strong wrestlers like Romanov, and actually used to employ takedowns of his own back on the regional scene. He has looked otherwise unstoppable.

Conversely, Spivak has been hit-or-miss throughout his UFC tenure and even though I believe he's made improvements, there were frames of the Sakai and Oleinik fights that were reasonably competitive. Likewise, Aspinall showed him levels in pretty brutal fashion not too long ago (though that was on short notice admittedly). He has potential, but I need to see a bit more before I'm sold on ranking him over Pavlovich.

Romanov is an easy follower to these other two.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I agree with most of this. I'll also add, I haven't see much for me to put Spivak ahead of Aspinall, Gane, Blaydes or Pavlovitch. Romanov is even less promising cardiovascularly and age wise. Pavlovitch might have the goods but I feel like him vs most of the elite guys feels coinflippy. I wouldn't say these are the best 3 guys in the world, if Pavlovitch beats Blaydes impressively I'll add him to the top 3 with guys like N'Gannou and Gane (and Maybe Jones lets see) though. I actually think Anatoly Malykhin beats Spivak and Romanov if we're talking "the world".
 
HuskySamoan said:
Yeah, I agree with most of this. I'll also add, I haven't see much for me to put Spivak ahead of Aspinall, Gane, Blaydes or Pavlovitch. Romanov is even less promising cardiovascularly and age wise. Pavlovitch might have the goods but I feel like him vs most of the elite guys feels coinflippy. I wouldn't say these are the best 3 guys in the world, if Pavlovitch beats Blaydes impressively I'll add him to the top 3 with guys like N'Gannou and Gane (and Maybe Jones lets see) though. I actually think Anatoly Malykhin beats Spivak and Romanov if we're talking "the world".
Click to expand...

Oh yeah, I didn't really engage with that premise of the thread in terms of legitimately believing these three guys are the best Heavyweights in the world. It's a farce of an idea on its face if you ask me; they're not even the best in the UFC. Spivak could potentially crack the Top 5 someday if he keeps improving and putting on performances like this (or gets favorable turns in the matchmaking like getting a Tuivasa rematch, Stipe retiring, etc.). But I am not ready to favor him over most of the top guys just yet.

Pavlovich, like I said, still has some things to prove but largely seems to have the goods. He has a claim to being Top 3 in the promotion, but that's about it at this juncture IMO. I would agree that him versus Gane, Blaydes, or a healthy Aspinall is pretty much a coinflip affair. I would have loved to see him fight Ngannou though...

Romanov just... I don't know what people see in him that he's still talked about in such special tones at times. Until I see him convincingly submit/pound out/wrestlefuck a Top 10 Heavyweight who has some inkling of a grappling base without turning into a wheezing gasbag after 1.5 rounds, I consider his hype-train effectively halted. I think there are actually a lot of poor stylistic match-ups ahead of him. Hell, considering Almeida is below him and coming off a win, it actually wouldn't surprise me one bit if the UFC made that fight next... and I think Jailton would actually take that.
 
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Romanov has already been exposed by Juan Espino and Marcin Tybura, keep up
 
Romanov has been exposed as a poor striker and sort or ineffective against larger men. He should move to LHW where his size and strength would go further. He weighs 240lbs while chubby. He used to be 265lbs fat. He has a lot of muscle under it. Romanov is not powerful enough with his grappling skillset to manhandle the middle sized let alone large HWs who are over 270lbs. Also Romanov had a stocky, 6"2 frame with short reach he is better sized at LHW were grapplers are poor.

Spivak in my opinion will never be a champion but will get a title shot and will become someone like prime Big Foot or Kenny Florian. One who gets title shots but never wins them but who is a solid win for the champion who beats them or who fights for contender spots but losses.

Pavlovich assuming he can wrestle and grapple which apparently he can since he grew up wrestling; and he trains with DC and the top Russian sambo and wrestlers. Well he will be champion at some point. With Ngannou gone I think Gane and Pavlovich will alternate the belts like JDS and Cain did sort of or what happened with Moreno vs Figgy. Aspinall is still out till end of this year and would need several wins to get into title contention (which wont happen till 2025 at this rate) also the seriousness of his injuries make me think he will be a top fighter but may miss out on being champion.

HuskySamoan said:
Spivak and Romanov are Moldovian like Cutelaba.
Click to expand...

To be fair they are Ethnic Russians. Slavs racially. First langugage is Russian. A lot of Moldova is Russian the leaders of the largest opposition parties are all Russian citizens as well. Moldova is an interesting place.
 
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