Preview: UFC 277 ‘Pena vs. Nunes 2’

Heavyweights

#11 HW | Sergei Pavlovich (15-1, 3-1 UFC) vs. #5 HW | Derrick Lewis (26-9, 17-7 UFC)

ODDS: Pavlovich (-125), Lewis (+105)

Lewis suddenly finds himself in a crucial spot, as this could be either the beginning of the end for “The Black Beast” or just the start of another run up the heavyweight ladder. Lewis captured some attention with a few knockouts upon his UFC debut in 2014, but it quickly seemed easy to write him off as a glass cannon after he cooled off with some quick defeats. Then Lewis made a simple adjustment by calming down and staying patient, and he has been near the top of the division for much of the time since. Lewis is gigantic and among the hardest hitters in the sport, and while he can be stunned, he is often hard to actually put away with one shot. As a result, he has essentially exposed that heavyweight success essentially boils down to a combination of power and durability. Without Lewis putting himself into danger, it is mostly up to his opponents to thread the needle between throwing effective offense and avoiding an opportunity for Lewis to spring into action and obliterate them. In recent years, Lewis has mostly only fallen short against the divisional elite, at which point it seems somewhat absurd that he even made it to that point in the first place. Title fights against Daniel Cormier and Ciryl Gane were essentially shutouts in his opponents’ favor. Lewis rebounded from the Gane loss with a classic knockout win over Chris Daukaus, then turned around in short order for a hometown fight in Houston against Tai Tuivasa. That is normally also the type of fight that Lewis wins, but this time around, Tuivasa was surprisingly able to absorb his power head-on and score a sudden knockout of his own in the second round. This is the heavyweight division, though, so there is the chance that it was just the coinflip of a knockout going against Lewis for once; or it could be a sign that the division is finally catching up to the 37-year-old Texan. It falls to Pavlovich to determine which is true.

Pavlovich came to the UFC about as well-tested as any heavyweight prospect you will find, enough so that he was thrown immediately into the mix against Alistair Overeem in his 2018 promotional debut. That proved to be too much too soon, but the Russian went about regaining his hype in short order, scoring quick knockouts of Marcelo Golm and Maurice Greene. Then Pavlovich basically vanished. Due to a combination of injuries and visa issues, he missed all of 2020 and 2021, only returning in March after nearly two and a half years on the shelf. Pavlovich looked good in his return, knocking out countryman Shamil Abdurakhimov, and he still has a ton of time ahead of him as a 30-year-old heavyweight. Plus, he could be set up well for a win here. Pavlovich has a lot of tools, including a wrestling background and a sneakily long reach. With a fairly consistent tendency towards pressure, he can make this the type of race to the knockout that Tuivasa was able to win. This is essentially another toss-up, and while Lewis might be fading, he is still at the point where an opponent is going to need to prove he can take one of his punches before it is considered a safe bet. The pick is Lewis via first-round knockout.

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Pena vs. Nunes
Moreno vs. France
Pavlovich vs. Lewis
Pantoja vs. Perez
Ankalaev vs. Smith
The Prelims