Sergei Pavlovich🇷🇺 (19-3) presses forward on the feet and patiently uses his 84 inch reach to maintain distance and wait for openings or establishes his jab and set up his own openings for his extremely fast and powerful volume combinations that include left hooks, overhand rights, and uppercuts, and occasionally kicks. Pavlovich has some underrated qualities in this matchup, like how he checks leg kicks, but there are some factors I think could lead to Waldo having success. Sergei's accuracy can be shakey, and he loops his left hook, which could leave him open to counters. Sergei can mix in the grappling using his greco-roman wrestling background, as shown in his last fight against Jairzinho Rozenstruik, where he went 2/2 on his takedowns. But this is mostly just to disrupt momentum as he doesn't have good top control, and opponents can normally get up fairly easily. Defensively, he has okay defensive grappling, normally using his frame to almost shrug or push off takedown attempts and getting back to his feet, but if you get him on his back, you can keep him down there for a while. Waldo Cortes-Acosta🇩🇴 (14-1) is an athletic and durable former baseball player with a boxing background who uses his good footwork and overall movement to control distance using his jab, ultimately to create openings for his fast, accurate, and powerful high volume combinations that include jabs, straight punches, and occasional body shots. I like how potent his right hands are, and so does he, claiming his straight right is the closest thing to a baseball pitch in the UFC. Similar to Sergei, he doesn't throw kicks often, but something different is that he doesn't have leg kick defense. I'm also not a fan of how even though he's a high volume striker he doesn't always capitalize on his opponents opening themselves up, usually doing nothing when they reset after exchanges instead of trying to pressure and punish them for being in a bad position. Waldo's lone loss comes from a fight where he was controlled but in this matchup it shouldn't be a huge factor, he has solid takedown defense and would likely initiate scrambles and return to his feet if he's taken down. My pick is Pavlovich (DEC).