Sergey Spivak Vows to Show Even More Skills in Future Following Dominant Victory

While Sergey Spivak’s overwhelming victory over Derrick Lewis may have been surprising to many observers, it wasn’t to the man himself.

“The Polar Bear” dominated Lewis in the UFC Fight Night 218 headliner, tossing his opponent all over the Octagon before locking in an arm-triangle choke at the 3:05 mark of Round 1. It was a significant statement against a two-time heavyweight title challenger.

“We were ready for everything,” Spivak said at the post-fight press conference “Today, I showed you guys my judo style, my sambo style, my boxing style, and in the future, I’ll show you guys more.”

Spivak transitioned seamlessly to the fight-ending choke, and that wasn’t by accident.

“I trained a lot for this moment,” he said. “My friend Misha Cirkunov showed me this triangle choke and we worked a lot for this moment. I saw Derrick Lewis doesn’t have good balance and grappling. I took the moment.”

Spivak has won six of his last seven UFC appearances to emerge as a new contender in the promotion’s heavyweight division. While his post-fight callout of Jon Jones may have been a little bit ambitious, the Moldovan is confident he deserves a highly-ranked foe in his next outing.

“I don’t choose my opponents and I don’t think about [rankings],” Spivak said. “The UFC needs to think about this. I just wait. Give me a contract, I sign it, and that’s it. But we need somebody from the Top 5, yes.”

As for Jones, Spivak will be an interested observer when the former light heavyweight champion squares off against Ciryl Gane for the vacant heavyweight crown at UFC 285 on March 4.


 “I don’t like to [predict] fights. It’s not for me,” Spivak said. “But I think it will be a great fight. We haven’t seen Jon Jones in a long time – he didn’t fight for three years. But he has big skills, good skills. He was a great champion and he’s still a great champion, in my opinion. Ciryl Gane is very tough, too. We’ll see what happens.”