UFC Fight Night 160: Hermansson vs. Cannonier - Predictions and Picks

#5 Michal Oleksiejczuk vs. Ovince St. Preux

Ovince St. Preux has become the UFC's top gatekeeper at 205lbs

After seemingly dropping out of title contention a couple of years back – you can pretty much split his career into pre and post-Jon Jones fight portions – Ovince St. Preux has basically settled into a role as a super-tough gatekeeper at 205lbs, exposing hopefuls like Tyson Pedro and Marcos Rogerio De Lima as lacking the tools to get to the very top while losing to potentially elite fighters such as Volkan Oezdemir and Dominick Reyes.

Essentially then, this is another gatekeeper-type fight for him, as he faces Poland’s Oleksiejczuk – an unheralded but hugely dangerous fighter who’s currently 2-0 in the UFC with one No Contest, a fight that he originally won against Khalil Rountree before he tested positive for clomiphene.

‘The Lord’ is only 24 years old but he’s hugely experienced, putting together a 14-2 record since 2014, and this is his chance to break into the upper echelon of the Light-Heavyweight division.

Thus far, Oleksiejczuk has shown incredibly heavy striking power in all of his UFC fights, and he’s quite willing to go to the head and body indiscriminately, as Gian Villante found out in their fight in March.

His defense seems to be hugely lacking – he appears to prefer to run out of range or lean back to avoid strikes rather than use head movement or footwork – but his chin has largely held up with just one KO loss to his name, and his power always seems to be the great equaliser.

Does OSP have the skills to take him out? A few years ago, maybe. St. Preux was a brilliant athlete in his prime and there would’ve been every chance that he could’ve caught Oleksiejczuk with something nasty on the counter, or been able to take him down to test his ground game. The problem now though is that at 36 years old and with a decade of action under his belt, he appears to be past his prime.

Most notably, his durability appears to be waning, and fast. He was knocked down in 3 of his last 4 fights; Tyson Pedro dropped him before he came back to submit the Aussie, Ilir Latifi dropped him en route to a submission win and Reyes practically knocked him out, and that’s before you mention his vicious KO loss at the hands of Jimi Manuwa in 2017.

He also appears to be slower than he was a few years ago, and that’s very worrying against a striker as fast and powerful as Oleksiejczuk. This isn’t an impossible fight for someone as experienced as OSP, but I’m just not convinced he can survive the heavy strikes of ‘The Lord’ across three rounds without being knocked out cold.

The Pick: Oleksiejczuk via second-round KO