Preview: UFC Fight Night 242 Prelims

The Ultimate Fighting Championship on Saturday heads back to the UFC Apex in Las Vegas with UFC Fight Night 242 and a decent slate of prelims. The featured clash clearly carries the most star power of the bunch, as Ryan Spann looks to get past a rough stretch against longtime light heavyweight stalwart Ovince St. Preux. From there, some intriguing prospects are in action, led by featherweight Isaac Dulgarian and flyweights Felipe dos Santos and Andre Lima. Virtually all the matches were made with entertainment in mind.

Now to the preview for the UFC Fight Night 242 “Burns vs. Brady” prelims:

Light Heavyweights

Ryan Spann (21-10, 7-5 UFC) vs. Ovince St. Preux (27-17, 15-12 UFC)

ODDS: Spann (-340), St. Preux (+270)

Somehow, St. Preux isn’t done just yet. “OSP” has hit some high points in his career since coming to the UFC via Strikeforce in 2013, including fighting for the interim title against Jon Jones, but the fall figured to be hard for him whenever the end of his career drew near. St. Preux has never had much of a consistent approach, instead picking up a grab bag of skills along his journey that only held together thanks to his high-level athleticism. In a division like light heavyweight, that made St. Preux both a viable knockout and submission threat at his peak—it included a surprising run as a newfound master of the Von Flue choke—but once he slowed down in terms of speed and output in his late 30s, it made for extremely tough going. Beyond the issues with his offensive approach, St. Preux’s durability seemed to fail him in a few knockout losses, so it was a shock when he suddenly turned around a rough stretch with a win against Kennedy Nzechukwu in March. The result said a lot about Nzechukwu’s tendencies for slow starts and inability to pick up the pace, but it was nice to see St. Preux simply survive against a hard hitter for three rounds, with the victory only serving as a bonus.

Spann seems like a tough next matchup given that “Superman” has only just fallen out of the UFC’s rankings after his last loss, but then again, inconsistency seems to be the only thing consistent about his UFC career. This is a mirror match in a way, given that Spann is another elite physical talent who doesn’t always seem comfortable inside the cage. While St. Preux learned to stay cautious and wait for his spots, Spann tends to try and lead the dance and see where things go from there. That has led to some grinds where Spann feels like clinching and wrestling, but it just as often makes for some exciting coinflips, with his lack of defense resulting in him and his opponent trading shots in the hopes of scaring each other off—and usually scoring a knockout. After looking sharp against Dominick Reyes to cap off 2022, things have wound up going against Spann in his last three fights, with an April knockout to Bogdan Guskov completely derailing what momentum he has had in recent years. There is certainly a chance that Spann could walk himself into one of St. Preux’s off-kilter techniques. However, the lean here is that things don’t go quite as sanguine for St. Preux this time around against someone willing to take some risks offensively. The pick is Spann via first-round knockout.

Jump To »
Spann vs. St. Preux
Dulgarian vs. Marotte
Lima vs. dos Santos
Santos vs. Yi
Amorim vs. Demopoulos
Petroski vs. Hill
Fletcher vs. Ramaska