Blagoy Ivanov vs. Alexandr Romanov: Heavyweight bout booked for UFC Fight Night on July 1

Blagoy Ivanov and Alexandr Romanov will face off in a heavyweight bout at UFC Fight Night on July 1. The event will take place at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas.

Alexandr Romanov will fight Blagoy Ivanov at #UFCVegas76 on July 1st. (first rep. @MMAJunkie) #UFC #MMA #UFCESPN #UFC2023 pic.twitter.com/2v4o5ZCMiP

— Marcel Dorff 🇳🇱🇮🇩 (@BigMarcel24) June 1, 2023

Ivanov is a 36-year-old fighter from Bulgaria. He is a former WSOF heavyweight champion and has a record of 19-5. He has dropped three out of his last four fights, two were by split decision.

Romanov is a 32-year-old fighter from Moldova. He has a record of 16-2 but hasn’t had much luck lately dropping each of his last two fights. He has finished 15 of his 16 wins and his wins are split with 10 submissions and 5 knockouts.

This is a great fight between two of the most promising heavyweights in the UFC.

Let’s take a look into this matchup with a bit more depth:

Blagoy Ivanov needs better luck with the judges

Blagoy Ivanov may be small in stature for the heavyweight division standing in at 5’11” but he makes up for it with grittiness and toughness. The shots this man can take are absolutely absurd even at age 36.

Regardless if he is winning these decisions or not he is someone that will always fight for your money no matter what. His style unfortunately doesn’t equivocate to him getting the nod on the judges’ scorecards.

He has only won one out of his last four decisions and he will certainly need to do something to right this ship if he wants to keep his UFC career alive

Alexandr Romanov gets the right step down in competition

Alexandr Romanov was first thought as the next title challenger at 15-0 and winning each of his first 5 fights by coming inside the distance. It was when he finally got that step up in competition is where Romanov hit a bit of a roadblock.

He certainly didn’t look anything like himself in his last fight against Alexander Volkov. He just looked out of it from the very first bell and he was ultimately knocked out in just 2 minutes.

Romanov does have some of the most vicious ground and pound you will see in the heavyweight division. Seeing how small Ivanov is there is a chance this could be the right bounce-back spot for him.