Preview: UFC Paris ‘Imavov vs. Borralho’

Lightweights

Benoit St. Denis (14-3, 1 NC) vs. Mauricio Ruffy (12-1)

Odds: Ruffy (-200); St. Denis (+170)

On some level, it is still surprising that St. Denis is here. Debuting at UFC 267 four years ago in Abu Dhabi, up a weight class on short notice, the former French paratrooper walked facefirst into the welterweight woodchipper known as Elizeu Zaleski dos Santos for three straight rounds. The result was 2021’s “Beatdown of the Year,” a mauling so comprehensive and one-sided that referee Viacheslav Kiselev was relieved of his remaining assignments for having failed to stop the fight.

St. Denis took nearly a year off after that inauspicious debut, and when he returned as a lightweight with the benefit of a full training camp, he turned out to be quite a good fighter. Specifically, he carved out a niche as an offensive wrecking machine with well-rounded skills and mean finishing instincts, and he won his next five fights by first or second-round stoppage, picking up three post-fight bonuses along the way.

His rise from ultraviolent mid-card banger to ultraviolent contender was halted in back-to-back losses to Dustin Poirier and Renato Carneiro, but he rebounded with a dominant win over Kyle Prepolec in May. Back in the win column, and with his position as one of France’s best fighters and one of the UFC’s most reliable entertainers, he must have been an easy pick for Saturday’s co-main event slot.

Much of St. Denis’ essence as a fighter can be distilled from his losses, especially the Zaleski dos Santos and Poirier fights. Specifically, St. Denis tends to overwhelm his opponents until or unless they overwhelm him. The “Elizeu Capoeira” fight saw him outmatched from the jump against a bigger, more experienced and better prepared foe who also happened to be an offensive juggernaut. Against Poirier, it is worth remembering that St. Denis was winning the fight handily, perhaps even cruising towards a finish, before getting caught and finished himself by the ultra-dangerous “Diamond.”

At his best, St. Denis is an aggressive, hard-hitting kickboxer with venomous grappling. His ratio of knockout to submission wins belies just how comfortable and dangerous he is on the feet and is more of an indication of his preference for finishing hurt foes with chokes.

St. Denis’ kryptonite appears to be fighters who can withstand his firepower long enough to land their own. In that regard, he is very much in the tradition of lightweight action merchants like Poirier, Justin Gaethje and Michael Chandler: good enough to beat most fighters in his division and be wildly entertaining while doing so, but with a hard ceiling against the very best of the best.

That raises the question of whether Ruffy, at this point in his development, falls into the former or the latter category. Aided by his electrifying striking and by the fact that thanks to Borralho, the Fighting Nerds were already a growing phenomenon, the 29-year-old Brazilian has skyrocketed into the rankings and the public’s awareness. It is jarring to realize that his UFC debut was less than 18 months ago.

Like St. Denis, Ruffy’s record does not accurately convey the breadth of his skills, but he is much more of a specialist. On his way to the UFC, he showed himself to be comfortable defending himself on the ground, and even mounting offense there, but his calling card is his kickboxing. Rangy, fast and nimble, Ruffy throws hard, straight punches in combination. He uncorks beautiful kicks from both stances, as he showed in leveling Bobby Green with a spinning wheel kick in May, in one of the most sensational knockouts of 2025.

Impressively for such a kick-oriented fighter, Ruffy’s footwork has usually been enough to keep brawlers out of his personal space, but he also employs elbow strikes in the phone booth and hard knees in the clinch when called upon.

If and when Ruffy takes his first UFC loss, it’s likely to be against a fighter who can consistently get inside of his kicking range, put their hands on him and take him down. It has not happened yet—his takedown defense is perfect through three UFC bouts and one on the Contender Series—but St. Denis might have the skills to test it.

Having the skills to do something in theory is quite a different thing from having the will and wit to do it in a fight, however, as many elite and near-elite fighters can attest. St. Denis’ spiritual kinship to fighters like Poirier and Gaethje includes lapses in fight IQ that seem to stem from addiction to adrenaline, bonus checks or both, and like his action hero forebears, he is not above biting down on his mouthguard and throwing back when he starts to get the worst of things on the feet.

That is a blessing for us, the fans, but a curse for St. Denis’ chances in this fight. And he will have those chances—he will almost certainly land some clean shots on Ruffy, who despite his dominance has actually absorbed more strikes than he has landed in the UFC—but his best route to victory lies in getting Ruffy on the canvas. The pick here is that that does not happen, and Ruffy wins by second-round knockout in an easy “Fight of the Night” candidate.



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Imavov vs. Borralho
St. Denis vs. Ruffy
Bukauskas vs. Craig
Oki vs. Jones
McKee vs. Sola
Freire vs. Keita
The Prelims