Ovince St.
Preux revealed that Kennedy
Nzechukwu’s lack of one-shot knockout power gave him the
confidence to keep going forward during their
UFC Fight Night 239 clash on Saturday.
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St. Preux put on an impressive showing, using forward pressure to
derail Nzechukwu’s excellent distance management on his way to a
hard-earned split decision win. After getting tagged by punches
early, St. Preux knew he had to put his opponent on his heels.
Without the fear of a one-punch KO, “OSP” didn’t hesitate before
biting down on his mouthpiece and marching forward.
“I couldn’t give him the chance to go forward,” St. Preux said at
Saturday’s post-fight press conference. “The thing about me is, I
do good going backwards, I can fight going backwards. If you put
Kennedy on his heels, he don’t do too good going backwards. But
also too, with him, if you get him going, he can start letting his
hands go. And there was a couple of times he started letting his
hand go, I was like, ‘Alright cool,’ bite down on my mouthpiece,
started going forward. When I started doing that, I started landing
my shots.
“And even in that phonebooth situation that we were in — and I’ve
knocked people out with one punch before — I’ve watched Kennedy
fight, a lot of times when he hits somebody or finishes with a TKO,
he kind of have to throw a couple of more punches after that. I
know I don’t need to do that cause when I caught him with a good –
was it an uppercut that I caught him with that kind of dropped him?
I was going to try to jump on him and I was like, ‘Okay, be
careful.’ Cause he is good at withstanding the storm and after that
,he comes back and starts picking people apart.”
While both fighters were slightly measured in the first two rounds,
they appeared to be preserving their gas tanks for the final frame,
which turned out to be a slugfest. Once again, St. Preux knew he
could trade with Nzechukwu in the pocket for five minutes, and he
did.
“Man to be honest again, like I knew he don’t have that one [shot]
knockout power,” St. Preux said. “He was landing shots, I was
landing shots. Actually my trainer’s wife, Taylor, probably about
two weeks ago we were doing something, she [was] like, ‘You can do
anything for five minutes. If you do it five minutes, you can do
anything five minutes.’ [In the fight] I was like alright cool, ‘If
you wanna be in a phonebooth for five minutes, we can do that.’”