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#2 UFC Light-Heavyweight Division: Ovince St. Preux vs. Jamahal Hill

Ovince St. Preux is the UFC's best gatekeeper at 205lbs

Once a UFC Light-Heavyweight title challenger, Ovince St. Preux now finds himself in a bit of a unique spot in the UFC’s 205lbs division. He’s essentially the division’s premier gatekeeper, as he’s not as horribly shopworn as say, Mauricio Rua. But unlike Anthony Smith, for example, he’s miles away from the title picture.

‘OSP’ has also had a pretty interesting 2020. After defeating Michal Oleksiejczuk to close out 2019, he made an odd move up to Heavyweight, only to spend most of his fight with Ben Rothwell running away. St. Preux lost that fight, and then dropped down and easily took care of prospect Alonzo Menifield in September.

Essentially, St. Preux is dangerous in all areas. We’ve seen him both knock out and submit opponents in the UFC, and he’s also more than capable of grinding a fight out with his clinch and wrestling.

However, ‘OSP’ seems to have become a more dangerous finisher as his UFC career has gone on – he actually hasn’t won a fight by decision since 2016.

This fight is the latest in a long list that sees St. Preux facing a rising prospect. But will Hill prove to be more of a Dominick Reyes, or more of a Menifield, Oleksiejczuk or Tyson Pedro, who all fell to ‘OSP’?

The key to St. Preux’s wins over those three men was that they’d already shown weaknesses ‘OSP’ could capitalise on.

Menifield’s struggles on the ground – and struggles in general if he failed to land a big shot – were already exposed by Devin Clark, and ‘OSP’ just took things further by finishing him.

Pedro and Oleksiejczuk always had deficiencies in their ground games, and St. Preux was able to capitalise on them despite finding himself in trouble at points.

So how does that play into this fight? Well, it’s worth noting that like those three fighters – and unlike Reyes – we’ve already seen some clear weaknesses from Hill.

‘Sweet Dreams’ came into the UFC off a successful appearance on Dana White’s Contender Series. He then used his unorthodox striking to outpoint Darko Stosic in January, before KOing Klidson Abreu in May – although the result was overturned due to a positive test for marijuana.

However, Hill’s win over Stosic wasn’t without plenty of faults. ‘Sweet Dreams’ showed a worrying tendency to keep his chin far too high – allowing Stosic to land shots he shouldn’t have been able to land. And more worryingly, his takedown defense appeared to be non-existent.

Hill clearly has a massive amount of potential. He carries knockout power in all of his strikes, and he’s definitely unorthodox enough to cause ‘OSP’ some problems. In fact, I’d go as far as to suggest that if this fight ends with a knockout, it’ll be Hill getting his hand raised.

Overall though, I feel like ‘OSP’ is simply too wily a veteran to fall for Hill’s unorthodox style. He’s too used to dealing with rising prospects in the UFC and sending them packing, and when those prospects have clear holes in their game like Hill does, he’s more than adept at using those holes to win.

I suspect ‘OSP’ might find himself in trouble early here, but once things settle down, he’ll find a way to get Hill to the ground and will probably submit him there. In fact, you wouldn’t bet against him using his now-patented ‘Von Preux’ choke for the fifth time in his UFC career for a win.

The Pick: St. Preux via second-round submission