Light Heavyweights
Alonzo Menifield (9-1) vs. Ovince St. Preux (24-14)He is quickly hitting the point of diminishing returns, but at least St. Preux returns to the comfortable confines of the light heavyweight division. St. Preux has always been an odd fighter. A former linebacker at the University of Tennessee, “OSP” is an obvious high-level athlete, but he developed an often-incoherent fighting style full of unorthodox strikes and tricky submissions rather than any sort of consistent game plan. It has still worked more often than not, including four separate victories via Von Flue chokes, but as St. Preux has entered his late 30s, everything has started to fall apart a bit as his athleticism has waned. St. Preux is always dangerous and tricky, but it seems to be a roll of the dice as far as what shape he will show up in. He managed to outlast and take over against Michal Oleksiejczuk in September, but that came after he showed little cardio in a disappointing loss to Nikita Krylov. A one-off move to heavyweight against Ben Rothwell in May saw St. Preux look quite flat, so he now returns to 205 pounds. Menifield has been an interesting prospect since his UFC debut nearly two years ago, but his tendency to score quick knockouts left a lot of questions about how he would fare in deep waters. That all came home to roost against Devin Clark in June. It was not a terrible performance, but after Clark managed to survive his initial barrage of offense, it quickly became an ugly fight that saw Menifield tire out in the third round. However, Menifield is still a prospect to watch in the long term, and he fails upward here a bit by his willingness to step in on late notice to take this fight. Menifield can certainly win this early. St. Preux may be durable, but he is there to be hit and has looked easier to hurt in recent fights, even if he has not been knocked out. If St. Preux survives, he should be able to make this into a grind—if Menifield does not pursue the clinch himself—which should set him up well for the later rounds. The pick is St. Preux via third-round submission.
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