When Ovince St. Preux steps into the Octagon on April 23rd to fight one of the best fighters in the history of the sport, Jon Jones, in an interim Light Heavyweight title fight in the main event of UFC 197, it will be the biggest opportunity of his career. If you take OSP’s word for it, however, he is fully prepared for this moment.
St. Preux appeared on Monday’s edition of “The MMA Hour” at MMAFighting.com and spoke about his upcoming fight against “Bones” Jones.
As far as how he feels going into the fight and how he and his team reacted when they were first presented the offer to fight Jones, St. Preux stated the following.
“I’m feeling pretty confident. I’m feeling really good. My coaches are throwing me into the deep end of the waters. It’s going to be like that for the next two weeks and I’m well prepared for it.
“Fights like this don’t come around that often. An opportunity presented itself. I’m definitely taking advantage of it.
“It’s something that we wanted,” he said of he and his team. “It’s something that we’re pretty excited about. Like I said, it’s one of the opportunities that won’t come. It’s either me stick around for another two years and so and try to wait for this opportunity to come again or me just jump on it right now. I’d rather jump on it right now.”
In terms of being a big betting underdog going into the fight, OSP insists things like that don’t bother him.
Personally, I don’t get bothered by stuff like at all. I’m pretty cool, calm, relaxed,” he noted. “People that have been around me, people that have been here since day one with me, my coach Eric Trainer – even with — those are the people I need in my corner. Everybody else, you’re always going to hear things online whether it’s good or bad. Me, I just shrug my shoulders and laugh.”
St. Preux also spoke about visualization, noting he has visualized and dreamed about this moment, and in the end, he always sees his hand getting raised.
“Every time I wake up, I have to tell myself that,” Saint Preux said of beating Jones. “Every time I go to sleep, I have to tell myself that. I’m dreaming about that. Every movie that I put on is some type of movie that is telling me that I’m fighting for glory. If I doubt myself in any which way, I already lost the fight before I got there.
“I’m doing a lot of imagery and visualization. Every time that happens within every scenario, it doesn’t matter what happens,” he claimed. “I have my hand raised at the end.”
UFC 197: Jones vs. St. Preux takes place on Saturday, April 23, 2016 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Make sure to join us here at MMANews.com on 4/23 for the best UFC 197 live results coverage on the web!
