Light Heavyweights
Ryan Spann (21-10, 7-5 UFC) vs. Ovince St. Preux (27-17, 15-12 UFC)UFC 307: Pereira vs. Rountree Jr. Saturday at 10 ET on ESPN+. Order Now!
A late scratch from a card last month, this solid light heavyweight bout instead lands here. Somehow, St. Preux isn’t done just yet. “OSP” has hit some high points in his career since coming to the UFC via Strikeforce in 2013, including fighting for the interim title against Jon Jones, but the fall figured to be hard for him whenever the end of his career drew near. St. Preux has never had much of a consistent approach, instead picking up a grab bag of skills along his career that only held together thanks to his high-level athleticism. In a division like light heavyweight, that made St. Preux both a viable knockout and submission threat at his peak—including a surprising run as a newfound master of the Von Flue choke—but once he slowed down in terms of both speed and output in his late 30s, that made for extremely tough going. Beyond the issues with his offensive approach, St. Preux’s durability seemed to fail him in a few knockout losses, so it was a shock when he suddenly turned around a rough stretch with a win against Kennedy Nzechukwu in March. The result said a lot about Nzechukwu’s tendencies for slow starts and inability to pick up the pace, but it was nice to see St. Preux simply survive against a hard hitter for three rounds, with the victory only serving as a bonus. Spann seems like a tough next matchup given that “Superman” has only just fallen out of the UFC’s rankings after his last loss. Then again, inconsistency seems to be the only thing consistent about Spann’s UFC career. This is a mirror match in a way, given that Spann is another elite physical talent who doesn’t always seem comfortable inside the cage. While St. Preux learned to stay cautious and wait for his spots, Spann tends to try and lead the dance and see where things go from there. That’s led to some grinds when Spann feels like clinching and wrestling, but it just as often makes for some exciting coinflips, with his lack of defense resulting in him trading shots with his opponent in the hopes of scaring each other off—and usually scoring a knockout. After looking sharp against Dominick Reyes to cap off 2022, things have wound up going against Spann in his last three fights, with an April knockout to Bogdan Guskov completely derailing what momentum he has had in recent years. There’s certainly a chance that Spann could walk himself into one of St. Preux’s off-kilter techniques. However, the lean here is that things don’t go quite as sanguine for St. Preux this time around against someone willing to take some risks offensively. The pick is Spann via first-round knockout.
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