Sorry ladies and gentlemen, this will be a gloating piece. And I have family plans today so you guys don’t get fancy GIFs today. Instead, I will use my descriptive prowess to put you in the fight itself, and you’ll need to use your . . .
Let’s begin.
It’s very rare to be completely, 100% right when you analyze mixed martial arts.
Unlike traditional sports where the game must extend for the regulation period, an MMA match can be over in a blink of an eye for the dumbest reasons. Injuries, flash knockouts, bad game plans can all ruin the assessment of a fight.
But for Ovince Saint Preux vs. Glover Teixeira I was totally right and it only took 1 round to prove it.
My breakdown of St. Preux a couple days ago focused on his strengths and weaknesses as well as his place in the division. I praised him for being a superb, rangy athlete with thunderous kicks, a talent for scrambling and interesting set ups. I criticized him for not understanding how to use his range, his abysmal gas tank and his habit of winging his left hook.
We saw every single element play out in the first round.
St. Preux started with his hands out, actively moving and looking to parry Glover’s jab. The Brazilian would have none of it and took the Tennessee favorite to the ground. St. Preux stood back up and kneed Glover in the balls (okay, I didn’t predict that) and after the allotted break, pulverized his liver with a powerful kick. Glover survived and St. Preux kept winging his left hook, missing on several potentially fight ending connections by allowing his strikes to crash against Glover’s forearms or slide over top of him. Glover watched for the next body kick, caught it and took St. Preux to the ground where he spent the remainder of the round. When the bell rang at the end of the first, St. Preux was already beginning to tire.
The rest of the fight was a forgone conclusion, with Teixeira winning in the third round by submission.
To be fair there were a couple wrinkles in St. Preux’s game that gave me hope for his future. For starters, he impressed me with his reversal in the first round after which he immediately transitioned for a Von Flue Choke. And in the waning moments of the second round he got Glover up against and finally (gasp) threw an elbow to end the round!
Glover was the real winner of the fight though. Everyone was absolutely horrified at how slow he looked against Phil Davis but after this dominant performance over St. Preux it appears that his excuse of having a poor weight cut is legit. Everyone thinks about Glover Teixeira as a wily boxer with good submission skills but against St. Preux he became an unbelievable wrestler, lifting and slamming his far larger opponent like he was channeling the Undertaker.
But this isn’t about him, it’s about me.
Me and how right I am.
