Saint Preux: ‘Loss to Bader Actually Helped Me Out’

In his octagon debut, Ovince Saint Preux was riding a wave of momentum very few other fighters could lay claim to. He had been one of the faces of Strikeforce in their dying days and before a tough decision loss to Gegard Mousasi, he possessed an eight fight win-streak.

Saint Preux went 4-0 inside the octagon before stepping up to the next class of light-heavyweights in the UFC. Ryan Bader would be Saint Preux’s first true elite test in the octagon and when the two headlined “UFC Fight Night 47” in August 2014, Saint Preux was dealt his first UFC loss.

The loss, however, bettered Saint Preux and allowed him to reinvent himself into the fighter he is today. “It actually, the loss actually did me good because I ended up reinventing myself,” Saint Preux said while on the MMA Hour.

“That in itself was a big learning experience,” he continued. “I stopped doing everything I was previously doing. I was doing a lot of new stuff for when I fought Bader. So I went back to the basics. I went back to the boxing gym, I got my timing back on and all of that showed when I fought Shogun, my timing was perfect. When I fought Cummins my timing was perfect.”

Saint Preux wasn’t lying when he said his timing was perfect in his fight with Shogun Rua; He knocked the former PRIDE champion out in just 34 seconds. It was the quickest anybody had defeated Rua.

After his bout with Rua, Saint Preux proved to be a new fighter in his dominant win over Patrick Cummins at “UFC on Fox: Machida vs. Rockhold” in April. Do you think Saint Preux could eventually become a challenger to Daniel Cormier’s light heavyweight title? Share your thoughts in the comment section below!

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