Mauricio Rua and Ovince Saint Preux face off on Saturday in a light heavyweight showdown at UFC 274 at the Footprint Center in Phoenix. These two met all the way back in 2014 and OSP finished the fight 34 seconds in by knockout.
Mauricio “Shogun” Rua comes into this fight with a 27-12-1 record overall but he has lost two of his last three fights. In Rua’s last fight against Paul Craig, he was outstruck 29-10, and midway through the second round he was knocked out by punches. His last win came back in 2020 by a split decision against Rogerio Nogueira. Rua is averaging 3.57 significant strikes per minute while absorbing 2.71 significant strikes per minute. Rua wants to get the fight to the ground and he is averaging 2.12 takedowns every 15 minutes. He is successful on 48 percent of his takedown attempts, and he stops 47 percent of his opponent's takedown attempts. He also stops 0.8 submission attempts every 15 minutes.
Ovince Saint Preux comes into this fight with a 25-16 record overall but he has lost two fights in a row. In his last fight against Tanner Boser he was outstruck 33-9 and midway through the second round he was finished by knockout. His last fight came against Alonzo Menifield and late in the second round of that fight he won by knockout. Saint Preux is averaging 2.65 significant strikes per minute while absorbing 3.07 significant strikes per minute. He is averaging 1.21 takedowns every 15 minutes and he is successful on 38 percent of his takedown attempts. He also stops 66 percent of his opponent's takedown attempts.
These are both fighters who are going to hunt for the knockout, and this has fight of the night written all over it. This might end up being the best fight on the main card. The better fighter here is OSP, and I don’t think he is going to want to take any chances in this fight. Saint Preux is going to hunt that knockout early and he is going to land one of the big punches. Back Saint Preux to win by knockout.
AUTHOR: Shane Mickle
