0 Comments 
Share-Shane Mercer
Ovince Saint Preux sat down for the inaugural episode of the Front Row Seat podcast.
Here are the show notes along with a transcription of the interview:
Episode # 1
Episode Title: Ovince Saint Preux Talks UFC Career, Fighting Shogun & Self Care
Episode Description: Ovince Saint Preux shares his exciting path towards professional sports. Our guest gives insights on what his future fights are going to look like along with the upcoming UFC Mauricio ‘Shogun’ Rua rematch event.
Guest Information: On the show today is Ovince Saint Preux ‘OSP’, a Haitian-American professional mixed martial artist who competes in the light heavyweight division of the UFC. He first began competing professionally in 2008 and has fought for Strikeforce, XFC, and Shark Fights. He fights out of Knoxville, Tennessee and is associated with Knoxville MMA.
Show Summary
- Sports career path
- Favorite MMA fighters
- First UFC fight in 2013
- Rematch with ‘Shogun’
- Lessons learned from fight losses
- As a veteran level fighter
- Future Fights
- The OSP’s Von Flue Choke
- OSP Millions Merch
Episode Links
Shane: Hello, I'm Shane Mercer and I'm your host. This is Front Row Seat, part of the MILLIONS podcast network And for this inaugural episode we are joined by legendary UFC light heavyweight fighter Ovince Saint Preux, OSP thank you for joining me man, how are you?
Ovince: I'm doing pretty good yourself
Shane: I'm doing well. I'm doing well. You got a really big fight coming up. Uh, Mauricio Shogun Hua, another legend of the game. Uh, how you feeling?
Ovince: I'm feeling pretty good. I came out here actually out in Vegas right now I came out probably about uh ten days, twelve uh twelve oh you can say two weeks before my fight. I'm getting a lot of treatment done, um we get an extra training at uh you know Xtreme Couture, pretty good
Shane: Good to hear that. When you say you flew out where are you coming from? You coming from Florida?
Ovince: Came out from knoxville tennessee
Shane: Right, okay, so still training out of Knoxville. What is it? Knoxville MMA Academy?
Ovince: Yeah, yeah, Knoxville Martial Arts Academy
Shane: Right right. Yeah, awesome man. Well, I want to dive into the fight. Uh, you know, in a little bit more in depth. But first I want to give. Uh, you know, give your fans, give the audience, give the listeners a bit of a sense of what you know brought you to this pivotal moment in your career. So you know, tell me a little bit about your time. You know when you first started really getting into athletics back in high school. Um. Oh, I'm probably going to say this incorrectly, but O Macaay high school…
Ovince: Immokalee
Shane: Immokalee high school. You were like a three sport athlete there, you were wrestling, football and track. Is that right?
Ovince: Yes yes definitely.
Shane: So tell me a little bit about the you know, those high school days and kind of growing up there. And uh, you know competing as a three sport athlete?
Ovince: Really um it's kind of funny cause really I really didn't start playing any sports, I only played football one year when i was in middle school and I was when I was in seventh grade but when I was in seventh grade I did eighth grade during the summer I was in a program where I did eighth grade during the summer so basically I went to ninth grade. So I went from technically I went from you know, you know I was seventh grade I remember playing football and then from there I did eighth grade during the summer then I was in ninth grade and that's when i got involved pretty much into three level sports like you know everything else just kind of came to um started wrestling were in track and well we had no choice but to run track, just what it was. I ended up being pretty good at track because my football coach was the head track coach and he wanted all the guys to do track you know, in the off season to keep yourself in shape and you know and my resting coach who's my english teacher and uh he was like hey if you're not doing nothing you might as well come out of wrestle and I just went ahead and did that, did well in all three sports you know track and field um i did good in that wrestling, I did extremely well wrestling end up in my senior end up you know placing second in state and with football that's what, football took me in Knoxville, Tennessee at the University of Tennessee and uh got a scholarship there, played four years at UT and uh graduated then comes with mixed martial arts career which should probably shouldn't have never happened. I actually stumbled into mixed martial arts, so I didn't know what I wanted to do after my football career so when I graduated i just walked into a gym and I was like ah you know what I'm gonna do something to keep me in shape. I guess I picked up on it rather quickly and you know one thing let to another.
Shane: Yeah, you know, you really wanted to be a football player.
Ovince: Oh yeah definitely. Guys growing up especially growing up in Florida and the state of Florida, you know when you're when you're a football player um that's like one of the number one things you think about it, like you know i wanna go to the league. I wanna go to the league so you know and for us too like the community that we grew up in like you know a lot of times sports is our way out and it was it was a situation when you know they use sports to get out.
Shane: Um, you know, four years with the Tennessee Volunteers. I mean, that's a pretty big team in NCAA football. But at what point did you realize that, you know, the NFL dream wasn't going to happen?
Ovince: I mean I realize that it… the thing about it is you really don't realize it even whe, it's even when you're done you still think you might be a something might be able to happen so you never really realize it cause a lot of times I’ll tell people like you know why do you stop playing football why did you quit playing football, and I’m always telling people you know I never quit football, football quit on me so you know at the end of the day it's just like when it came to it just you get some of your old teammates sitting around you talking and uh when you're talking you'll be like okay, I guess we're done now so what's next. So you get guys who start off different careers and whatnot. I'm off into a gym, I just walked into a gym, I wanted to take a kickboxing class and essentially MMA and kind of took that and ran with it.
Shane: So what was it that sort of pulled you into that gym? That had you walk into that gym and sort of be like, let me go check this out.
Ovince: Actually one of my fraternity brothers. He was, he told me uh i guess uh one of our trainers at that time joey he was um taking like a business management class or something and he did a presentation on uh you know mixed martial arts and he found that to be interesting. I called him afterwards and like hey what do you think i can do to uh train with you, and he was like just come by the gym and train he went one day and the next day he brought me along and you know we're throwing punches and kicks and stuff and all that this is just kind of cool and then after that uh my head coach Eric was like okay now we're gonna um work on uh I'm gonna show you what an arm triangle is, I was like a triangle and I was like uh I'm thinking to myself I thought I was walking to a kickboxing class, but essentially it was a uh it was a mixed martial arts class and i kind of like i said i kinda just initially I was doing it to stay in shape and then from staying in shape i kind of went full force with it.
Shane: When you mentioned your frat brother, there were talking about Um. Omega Psi Phi?
Ovince: Yeah Omega Psi Phi, yeah yeah.
Shane: Right, right, and I understand that you know they really played more than just a role in pulling you into the gym, But I understand that that fraternity really played a role in giving you the confidence to step into a cage.
Ovince: Yeah you know, it's crazy like I don't I don't talk about it a lot but you know with my fraternity we tend to be uh a bit rambunctious. You have a don't care type attitude about stuff if you see our personalities that we see certain stuff that we do like you see a lot of like great athletes you get like you know Michael Jenkins, Shaquille O'neal, Michael Jordan, if you see their attitude or persona or whatnot it kind of gives you that, I guess the demeanor what we carry and we tend to have a lot of athletes that play in the league too so um whether it’s football, basketball, we tend to have a lot of: you know guys and we tend to be the like the stern one for what happens.
Shane: So talk to me about some of your favorite fighters, who inspired you. you know. Uh, who at the time when you were just getting into MMA, were you watching you know on the pay per views, like you you know- I got to watch this dude fight?
Ovince: Man to be honest man was like when I first started watching fighting, I used to watch a whole bunch of Pride videos and of course you know like even before I fought Shogun I was a big Shogun fan, and I used to watch a ton of Pride videos and whether it's like watching Shogun, Cro Cop, used to love watching Cro Cop, just because he was a southpaw too um same thing with uh a Ernesto Hoost, used to be one of the top guys I liked watching, the way he was like chopping people’s legs down. But going from there is just like you know um even if you go into the UFC and stuff, even before I ended up making it and just watching different styles or what not like watching GSP style like watching him fight. But I think my top guys were probably, gonna, were Cro Cop and um Ernesto Hoost. Even though in Ernesto Hoost didn't do MMA, he did K1 Kickboxing, even though he didn't do MMA, I used to love watching him. And everybody used to talk about Shogun, and you know then he was my guy, and I’m still a fan, still a fan. He's been doing it, I don’t know, he’s being doing probably twice as many years as I've been doing it. So like just watching the old Pride videos, you watching him and also like you know guy that I actually trained with that I trained with a ton of times that I ended up love watching was uh Hendo, Dan Henderson, like watching him is just like 'cause you always used to see him and like I remember training with him I was like why are we like watching videos on him I was like why did he move like that why do he move a certain way. I mean I grabbed hold of him and like realize how dense he was and i was like okay that's the reason he move that way but again that H-bomb that he had it's uh it's it's definitely an eye opener 'cause couple times during the training session he landed it and I was like okay so this is how it feels like so…
Shane: How important is it to get hit with those kind of bombs in training?
Ovince: It just will remind you that you're alive the thing about it is it's just like, it’s just like playing football it's just like a lot of times you have to go live. People were like well I don't want to do that because I don't wanna get hurt, you have to go live so you can feel a certain hit, so you can okay I feel this, I can put my body into place by doing this because you know sparring is you know this different situation people talk about spar and stuff, but you know for me like I don't try to spar all the time but I definitely spar to get the work that I need. You know I'm not a boxer at all and sometimes if I need to feel how to get hit I go in and box around like look I'm coming cause I'm going in their ring. I said look I'm essentially coming in here to get my, so don't kill me, but i'm gonna get my butt whooped, well so I go in then I get cracked a couple of times I'm like oh my God, but at the same time when I actually start doing it the mace parr it's completely different that's completely different like you know getting by boxing getting hit by you know somebody that doesn't is different I mean and then they obviously you gotta watch out for the kicks and uh the the leg kicks, and the high kick but you know when you get hit it's completely different we learning we're still not fully effective into the boxing game but you know um it's important to actually get those hits because you need to know how it feels like because you know sometimes people don't realize. You know I tell people I rather get hit in the face then in the body and some people would be like well knees don't really bother me and I was like you haven't really got hit by me so if you get hit by a knee in the liver, it’s gonna sit you down and have you trying to reevaluate your life.
Shane: Reminds me of the Giga kick which is pretty popular right now. you know that liver dropping guys.
Ovince: oh oh yeah so it was it's bad you get the front kicks to the body and it just kills the diaphragm and when you start doing that there's only so much you can take after you, after that you just you can't do anything.
Shane: So you know. Let me ask you about this. then be, you know, when you started your career, you know you, you had your amateur fights. You know you went 5-0 in your amateur career and then you're all right. It's time to go pro and then that didn't go so well for you, right off the bat. A couple of losses to start your career. Tell me where you were at after those first two losses in your pro career.
Ovince: Essentially what happened was like you know a lot of times when you get different organization or you get different people different organization as you first start off fighting for you know I was coming in: pretty much as the guy that essentially didn't know anything and when I was coming in the god was bill coming in I was coming in to actually lose to be honest and they'll be like hey this guy right here is a boxer and I'm like okay cool and then you know we'll pull up his boxing work went 5-0 as a boxer and I remember looking at that in the day of the fight I found that he was a three time state wrestling champ and I was thinking to myself like well hold up you told me he was a boxer and now a three time state wrestling champ our game plan was to take him down to the ground and you know like okay that's out the window so you know we still stick to the game plan but I was doing more striking with him I actually beating him in the striking and he just you know it went decision I remember one decision and I was thinking to myself like I know i'm going to lose this because you know I'm in the home crowd so you know just my first couple fights like it's just me training in the aspect of like not really I was good in the gym, but you know didn't wasn't good in the strength program like I was old strong but I can only push myself so far and for so long when I'm training when I'm doing my strength and conditioning by myself so you know I think i went I was 0-2, then I went, at one point in time I was 2-4 and four and then I got with a shrink hook and from there I had like eight wins in a row. I had like eight wins in a row, I remember I ended up getting signed in Strikeforce, and I remember there was a period, I think 2010, 2011, or 2012 where for Strikeforce I remember I had a fight November 19th, December 7th, and January 7th, so I've essentially had three fights within five weeks. And I was that was that's all three fights in Strikeforce within five weeks and I told myself I'll never do that again.
Shane: Yeah, that's a little bit crazy. a little much on the body.
Ovince: Yeah.
Shane: You know. So then let's just fast forward a little bit. Then, in 2013 you had your first fight in the UFC. What was that experience like? Tell me about the very first walk out in the UFC.
Ovince: It was it was weird cause i ended up winning by like a technical decision sort of kind of, and it was just I didn't know what I was doing, and when I got my hand raised and it was like you know over, win in like a technical decision and I was like what the hell is that, um so basically it was a uh my first thought I thought Gian Villante um Newark, New Jersey at the TV Center and I told myself when I walked in I was like oh my god I just I just need to get off, I just need to get out of this first fight, once I get out of this first start I'll be perfectly fine so I got out and when I got out I was good, but I wasn't satisfied the way I wanted so you know my next fight I want to come out and make a statement and that’s what I did.
Shane: Yeah, I would say you made a series of statements. You won six of your first seven fights in the UFC. One of them against a guy that you grew up watching in Pride, Shogun, and talk to me about that first fight against Shogun.
Ovince: Well initially I wasn't supposed to fight him
Shane: Right, okay…
Ovince: Yeah I wasn't supposed to fight and I remember getting a phone call like um okay. UFC travel we typically travel on Tuesdays that following Wednesday the Wednesday before that I get a phone call saying hey you know I think Jimmy Manuel was supposed to fight then and Jimmy couldn't make it 'cause he got hurt, and the thing about you have see travel in Brazil or what night you need to get the visas and and we couldn't get the visa and stuff situated for anybody to come in and take a last minute fight so since I was the co main event guess what they bumped me up to the main event and I like um i get the phone call, they’re like hey you fighting Shogun, and I’m like I'm fighting who, and they were like Shogun. And I was like oh okay and I was like oh man this is I was thinking to myself, like man this is really really early I don't know if i can handle it to a lot of pressure you know what and then after I told myself you know what, I don't care you know whatever he throws on me I'm gonna give it back. I guess he threw some at me, I gave him something really really good and it was over in thirty six seconds.
Shane: I was going to say you, it ended real fast
Ovince: Yeah it was over in thirty six seconds was crazy because I was screaming off the top of my lungs and I remember listening to myself like I can hear myself scream and I was like is it echoing in here and then out of nowhere and I hear my trainer, you good, yes and I'm like looking at my training I'm like why do I hear him so clear it was like a dead silence in the arena cause we were in Brazil, oh like when I mean it was a dead silence it was like a dead silence and i was like oh i hope i make it out here, cause I know the Brazilian fans are pretty intense. So that happened and uh that that was actually pretty good but my trainer did tell me that after that he was like well you know you you just beat Shogun, so there's not gonna be any easy fights after this, and so yeah like cool, I understand.
Shane: So now here we are and you meet Shogun again, coming up here. I mean, talk to me about you know, where you're at, heading into this huge fight again. A big pay per view- UFC 274 on the main card.
Ovince: It's crazy, like I was looking at i haven't, I'm trying I haven't really looked at the undercard yet but the pay per view card I know is down to Cerrone-Lauzon, me and Shogun, Mike Chandler-Tony Ferguson, Rose versus Carla and like Oliver versus Gaethje and I'm like looking at this card and I'm like okay, but is it I'm looking like fighters, we all talk, we do this, we do this a lot, fighters, they'll look at the card and be like okay this might be a potential bonus. Just right here for the potential bonus, I'm looking at the main card like everybody has this potential making a bonus in a bank in a pay per view card and I'm like cute so um I was looking out like okay I'm excited to fight this is a good rematch but at the same time this main card is gonna be something crazy.
Shane: That's funny. That's really an interesting insight there. So you guys aren't even necessarily going into it like…obviously you're focused on the guy you're fighting, but there is a lot of focus on the other fighters and who you're competing with for those bonuses.
Ovince: Yeah I mean like like I said you just wanna, fighters do that all the time it's just like you look at it and be like when you look at it and be like okay this person has the potential getting a bonus, this person has a potential like he's known for getting bonuses, typically if you have a good you know headline of fight which is gonna be you get two belts on the line right now and typically they're really good fights they automatically get bonuses so cause I remember I had a fight in New York when GSP fought um Michael Bisping and then um Rose b, uh Johanna and somebody else had a bonus and I remember I had a share of bonus so but you know the way the fight was you know the bonuses like they had good fights that night, like you had goods, and I ended up getting a really good knockout but I had it and I ended up sharing my bonus and I was like thinking to myself like I didn't want that but you know it is what it is you know I got the bonus, I wasn't complaining about that but it's just like you do have a fighter be like hey you wanna make some extra money, you want to look at the card and be like okay I can potentially make this happen, but this card I'm like it's gonna be tough to make this happen.
Shane: How much of an impact does that have on you afterwards when you don't get the bonus?
Ovince: It don't happen i mean it it's no impact for me at the end of the day it's just like as long as I get my hand raised I'm perfectly fine with that so I don't like my biggest focus is at the end of the night to get my hand raised, getting the bonuses a plus.
Shane: You know you got Shogun standing in front of you here. What’s sort of the game plan this time around? I mean, obviously, I'm sure you'd love to put him out in thirty seconds again. but can you prepare for something like that?
Ovince: Not necessarily um uh I don't know what his game play going be um he might blitz me, he might not, I'm pretty decent counter puncher so that's how you know I'll put them out in six second in the first time uh going to be I mean and also too like you know the Shogun that I fought back then is pretty much not the guy at all, that I'm fighting right now and um you know I'm a completely different guy too, like you know when I make up my mind about something I make my mind the past couple of years you know you know my my career being kind of up and down, roller coaster type of deal and essentially that's a lot be my fault like then I come in and fight we if I come in to fight week 230, I'm going to have a problem. If I come into in the fight week you know like if I come in fight week and I'm like at 222, at most 223, you know I'm really really good if I come like you know right now my weight is doing really good and I plan to come in fight week that Tuesday hopefully about 221 so that gets me about you know relatively fourteen pounds to cut, if I do that typically when I do that when I come in the fight week around the 221, 220, I typically get a bonus.
Shane: You're looking at? You're looking at that bonus, like that bonus has my name on it.
Ovince: Yeah this has been one of those occasions that I came in that then I came in and I didn't get a bonus but I and I felt so good at fight too so um so yeah you just you just i know how I am and I know what I'm capable of doing and you know I'm just gonna put that in there.
Shane: You know you, you mentioned, you know your career is on a bit of a roller coaster. You know some ups and downs over the last few years, you know you're coming off of two losses. Last one to Tanner Boser. What lessons have you learned in those most recent losses?
Ovince: Oh I'm not a spring chicken that i used to be um, it is that too and I make it harder than um I make it harder than I need to make it you know when I first started in the game I always used to walk around like under pretty much under two twenty five so my weight cut used to be exceptionally easy and then uh metabolism starts slowing down and I'm a I'm one of the you know veterans. I think i was talking to Brad Tavares the other day and you know he'd been in New York City since I think he said 2013 or 2012 and he was like you know I'm twenty five fights deep and he was like it was like how how he yeah how much right you got I like I'm pretty sure I'm about 25 fights deep in the UFC right now and then um so that's that put me in a I guess the veteran status so now it's me. I can't take any shortcuts anymore like now it's essentially me like if I do something I can I have to do it full force so I gotta do it pretty much a hundred percent. I can't like slack off here and then after that make it and make it in the back end cause you know I walk around a little heavier tonight than i used to so I got to make sure my diet is one point, if my diet is on point my cardio is gonna be where it needs to be so um so just little things that I tell myself to do which again is easier said than done too.
Shane: Okay, I'm going to throw a number out to you because you. you're kind of heading on it. Now that you know you mentioned the number of fights you know, over the number forty. You've got more than forty fights, Shogun is forty years old. You're approaching that same number yourself. Just talk to me a little bit about the mental aspect of approaching that number forty.
Ovince: You know it all depends like how you treat your body a lot of people will be like oh you know it just it just you you you're getting older one it's not that you're getting older it's just the fact that I think for me I think like I still feel fast and explosive and I still feel like I can I do a lot of the things it's just me now is just I don't kill myself in the gym uh like I used to there's no reason to just for the simple fact you can sit down and read something remember being a young father used to be in the gym kid yourself whatever happens you just complete chaos now you're just like okay you know let's bring it down a bit, let's make sure your body is taking care of your body so I do kill myself in the gym but you know I spend I spend say Tuesday and Thursday at the time I kill myself in the gym other one that I'm doing some type of treatment um you know pretty much every day this week actual, yeah every day this week I have some type of treatment going on every single day in the week and I make sure I do that because I need my body to actually work the way it used to, been through a lot of wars mean I tell people when I train you're essentially basically training your body to deliver punishment and receive punishment so um at the end of the day as you're doing that you want to make sure you're taking care of your body at the same time.
Shane: Yeah, you know, I think a lot of a lot of people out there look at the sport, especially mixed martial arts, and oh, it's all about delivering punishment and of course that's what you want to do when you get out there. But how important is that aspect of training to absorb punishment?
Ovince: It's very important if you really think about it I can dominate a fight for three rounds regardless like you know I used to I remember people used to come up to me and be like man I watched you fight he was like they were like uh why did you have to, why didn't have to end that that quick I’m like what are you talking about and he'll like well you you need a he'll like man I watch, I pay the money to watch it, but uh you need to make it last a little long and I looked at them and I’m like what now like even though I'm completely dominating the fight it doesn't matter. I'm still hit too even though I'm dominating the fight, he's still getting his shots in on me and I could feel those at the end of the night so was like if I could get a chance to get it out of there I’m good and there’s now fighters just want to be like oh I'm just gonna stay in here and and you know fight this guy his whole entire time and I was like you might be dominated him pretty much it might be you know lining over you know fifty percent of your punches and he's landing probably you know twenty or thirty percent, your sponsors don't matter, you're still getting hit though.
Shane: Exactly right? So let's talk a little bit about. you know your career. This is a huge pay per view event. How important is it to you to sort of be on a pay per view as opposed to like a UFC Fight Night?
Ovince: um another thing I tend, I tend to do really good in pay per views but you know if I come in the where I need to I do exception well in pay per views but you know with the pay per view cards now it's different cause the fight nights are held in Vegas and not a lot of people there you know the pay per view card it is actually gonna be um this actually gonna be my first fight that I actually had a crowd in a while so that should be exceptionally well, but yeah that that should be that's actually pretty exciting pretty freaking exciting um but the pay per view cards people keep eye on those cards 'cause they only happened once a month and they can be talking about that card for the rest of the month. I mean shoot last month you had a pay per view card with Aljo and you know he had a big upset and you know everybody's still talking about that.
Shane: Still talking about it, exactly a lot of chat going on there, you know a lot of fighters throwing their names out there, looking at trying to take their shots at Aljo and you're right, the the story lines live on for a long time after a pay per view.
Ovince: Oh yeah definitely definitely, I mean even with that he's just like you know even we fights like that I was like a lot of people just kind of wrote them off or whatnot and when you kind of see them and you seen him training and you seeing how he was gone I'm like man I was just looking really good but even with that he just looking at him and his mentality his his mindset he's like okay you can tell he was a different person, but yeah pay per view cards to date they typically do what they they they typically get you the fans that you need
Shane: So let me ask you this. Since we're talking about storylines, what's the OSP headline after UFC 274?
Ovince: You know I don't know like the thing about it is I can tell you it's funny cause I can put pretty much a hundred different scenarios how I'm gonna finish the fight and what was crazy about it none of those scenarios ever happen so the only scenario I can give you that I'm pretty much one hundred percent confidence in, is I'm gonna get my hand raised at the end of the night.
Shane: Well, there you go. Where does a win over Shogun take you next? Where does your career go after you get that W, and you get your hand raised on May 7th?
Ovince: You know just me I could see me still climbing the ladders, like me to be honest, like and especially looking at people like Glover who I fought before and like literally it's crazy I remember fighting him and I was like I remember fighting him, I sat down and had a conversation with him, he was like I like cause I told him and I looked at him I was like why do I feel like you in better shape than you ever was before and he was like bro, like when to this day I think he fought when he fought Anthony Smith 'cause I fought Ben Rothwell that night too when he fought Anthony Smith and he was like look that night when I fought you, that's probably the best shape I ever was in my life, and I'm like what are you talking about? He was like I've never been in that type of shape yet but that was like one of the best shapes I've ever been in my life and I was like why you show up in shape against me? And it and they showed in the fight cause I remember I think a body kick and he was like and he told me before he would like any other fight if you were landing a body kick on me I'd crumble, but he was like my trainer kept on telling me you need to train, you need to train not to slack off on this kid and um but watching him and watching what he does what he did throughout his career whatnot I was like you know what you know I can I can do that I can do that so like watching him even watching Jan too cause he won the belt at thirty nine, so you know now he's just and and and you got a good story too at one point in time he was one and five in the UFC, he had a record of one in five in the UFC, so you know just kind of watching that and watching those stories and whatnot unfold to one and unfold you know my head space is like okay I can make this happen, so now it's me actually committing myself to that and you know that's what I've been, that's what I did and the first step I did too is just like you know my last couple weeks of training camp, me coming out to Vegas and actually getting me some treatment. I'm getting some good training partners like right now I'm cutting weight and like I was at uh cats yesterday training and the gods were like go guys I felt like I was I was toast but guy was like hey do you need to slow down do you need to take a break? I'm like no I got a fight coming up I'm like you can go ahead and whoop my ass, I don't care you know this is the week that I get my butt whooped and then the next week is just basically like go.
Shane: You know, I love that you mention those guys, Jan, and Glover. You know the guys that are still at the top of the division. But also at that, you know at and around or past that magic number of forty that you know is, so you know, prevalent in the sports world. In general, everybody looks at that number like dudes are done at forty years old. But then we see guys like Glover, like Jan, or another sport, for example, sport that you love football, we see a guy like TomBrady, carrying on and keeping it up and competing and winning at the very highest level of the sport.
Ovince: Well again they're able to do that they take care of himself like Tom Brady been taking care of himself for so long. I mean shoot um Bron right now is what 37, 38-years-old, you know he still moves like he's freaking like eighteen just because he spent a lot of money taking care of himself so that one of the biggest things I see is guys you know taking care of himself in that high level.
Shane: Has the, you know, I guess, has the the sort of psychology around taking care of yourself changed over these last, you know, ten, fifteen, twenty years?
Ovince: Yes, tremendously more like ten years. I mean you know when you first started doing it when I first started doing some martial arts it is just like you we in and after you win in you know you load up on carbs, not as a science to cut weight, you know there's a science for everything now it's just like okay this is you know Monday I did like you know body composition tests and whatnot and I'm talking to the guy at the place, like okay this is just how much calories you burn, you know at night and this is how much you can burn, this how much calories you should be burning during the day when you train, and one I'm like looking at all the like everything is basically numbers everything is a numbers game calories efficient, like calories intake and like just some everything that you do is numbers whether you're getting on the scale that's a number um how many punches you throw how many miles you run everything when it comes to training and now become numbers so as long as you get those numbers correct you're good.
Shane: A lot of math.
Ovince: Yes a lot of math, a lot of math.
Shane: We've sort of been talking about what comes next in your career After you, you know, you get your hand raised at UFC 274, get your second win over an idol of yours, Shogun, you know, you actually recently got called out by Alexander Gustafsson, And I mean it didn’t make the most sense, as far as a call out goes because he was looking for a fight in May, you' already on a card in May, so that wasn’t going to happen. But what do you think of the possibility of that fight happening down the line?
Ovince: Well that fight he was trying to make it happen at heavyweight, and I'm not fighting at that weight anymore. So it's just like yeah I'm not fighting at heavyweight anymore like you know…
Shane: Yeah, you're done with that?
Ovince: I came here on Monday, I had to weigh myself, I came in Monday at two twenty eight and I'm on track so you know by the time I leave next Tuesday to go to Arizona I should be around you know 223 at most, 222 so you know I'm comfortable where I'm at weight wise or whatnot and me trying to fight at heavyweight is different. I'm not gonna do that to myself because my body is, sometimes I do walk around heavy, but my body's not used to being and when when I walk around it's kind of like when you're in shape, but when you're out of shape, but my out of shape is basically walked around heavy and people like oh you lucky you still like you're in shape where I’m like no I am freaking out of shape. Right now I'm struggling, so and then if I started to get myself in shape guess what happens in my weight, so no, I'm going to stick to light heavyweight, I mean he can come down to light heavy.
Shane: Oh okay. So are you saying that if he is willing to come down to light heavy that the fight could happen.
Ovince: Oh yeah definitely, yes.
Shane: Is there anybody else out there other than that? Maybe you know that you would be looking at post Shogun?
Ovince: It doesn't matter, I mean UFC can throw people at me. I'm not the guy to you know stray away from fights and whatnot you know it's crazy cause a lot of, a good portion of my career like it worked out tremendously for me but at the end of the day it was it like an achilles heel for me too um where I take a lot of short notice fights, so you know I'm known to taking short notice is good sometimes, it end up working out for me, sometimes they don't but at the end of the day I don't stray away from nobody.
Shane: Well, you know, I don't want to keep you too much longer, but I have a couple more questions. I want to get to one, specifically about, you know how you ended fights. You really became known for the Von Flue choke. But I feel like we haven't seen it in a long time.
Ovince: I don't know, it just, it happens, I know it's there, it's more like a feel thing for me. You grab my neck, I know what to do from there, but you know if the, if you know the situation proceeds or whatnot somebody grabbed my neck you might see me go for it, it's just extinct now, I don't even think about it.
Shane: Would you call it a signature move?
Ovince: I wouldn't call it a signature move. I mean a lot of times during fights I see guys grabbing people’s necks and I’m like its there and I'm like okay well if they knew how to do it they would have done it, but I wouldn't call it signature move I just I do so much that I don't call it a signature move anymore.
Shane: Yeah, exactly, you know. It sort of just becomes another move, and I mean you look for any way to win right?
Ovince: Oh yeah definitely, definitely I mean I try to put you know the best way to win I know. My coaches talk about you put yourself in your favorite position and regardless whether for this whatever position I mean I always find a way to put myself in my favorite positions and those position I feel more comfortable I can dominate from there and I don't want to even have to think about nothing else.
Shane: Right right. You know, I always want to ask our guys. You know that are on the platform, on the MILLIONS platform about it. What's your experience been like so far with the platform?
Ovince: Definitely like it was good questions, you don't ask the typical questions or whatnot so um that's always the plus, cause a lot of times you just like, you do podcasts, you do particular interviews and whatnot, guys always ask the same questions, like here we go again or maybe ask it in many different ways but you know when you get into this what made you think about this and whatnot, okay I haven't heard that question in a long while so now I’m kind of bringing back memories it was like funny thing this is what happened so so yeah
Shane: Hey, well,, tell your friends because we're going to be having a lot more of these shows
Ovince: I definitely I definitely will
Shane: And uh, but you know also the on the on the merch side of things, they've been making some shirts and stuff.
Ovince: Yeah my uh my manager Oren, came up with an idea he like now you need to start a logo and uh I got a logo going with the merch stuff got the shirts going and stuff so that's pretty dope and uh and he started that and I'm like okay and from what I've heard now though the feedback has been actually really really good.
Shane: Hey, well that's great man. Well, listen, I just want to say thank you so much for you know, taking the time out of your busy training schedule, I know that it's pretty intense, especially leading up to a UFC pay per view. So thanks so much for joining us man, really appreciate it.
Ovince: Thank you
Like, download, and subscribe to Front Row Seat. You can support Ovince Saint Preux by shopping for his merchandise. And keep up with his fight story by regularly checking in on the MILLIONS blog.
Comment