UFC light heavyweight Ovince Saint Preux pulled off one of the rarest submissions in mixed martial arts for the third time last night when he submitted Yushin Okami with his patented “Von Preux” choke in the main event of UFC Japan.
Okami was a last minute replacement for the injured Shogun Rua, and normally fights at middleweight but jumped at the opportunity to face OSP in the main event when the UFC called.
Saint Preux was a bit taken back that Okami decided to shoot in on him from the opening bell, as it was all downhill for him once OSP was in the top position. He explained how it all went down at the UFC Japan post fight press conference.
“I was surprised, but I don’t think he knew I was going to go for it,” Saint Preux said following his victory over Yushin Okami. “I was just surprised that he shot [go for a takedown]. But typically, when somebody shoots in on me, I’m pretty heavy and it’s pretty hard to get me off of them and that happened. Like I said, I’m still thinking to myself, ‘Why did he grab my head?’”
“I obviously didn’t plan to do that,” Saint Preux stated. “I was actually surprised he shot in on me and I think when I was trying to position him, because I was trying work on another submission, he grabbed my head. Typically, if I’m on top of somebody and you automatically grab my head, my hand just kind of goes over. I was quite surprised when he grabbed it, and when I locked it in, I knew I was going to finish it. It was way too tight.”
OSP now looks ahead to his next fight and hopes he’ll get a chance to avenge some previous losses, or of course get his rematch with Shogun re-booked for a later date.
“I definitely came here to fight ‘Shogun’ [Rua],” Saint Preux said. “I definitely want to fight ‘Shogun’, but whoever is ahead of me right now. I have two loses that I think about – one with Volkan [Oezdemir], one with Jimi [Manuwa] – and I would definitely love to have those back, so whatever the UFC wants to do from here.”
