Athletes
Benoît Saint-Denis Never Wastes His Time
French Lightweight Benoît Saint-Denis Hopes To Get His 2023 Campaign Started With A Bang At UFC Fight Night: Strickland vs Magomedov
Benoît Saint-Denis didn’t waste any time getting to the UFC. Four wins in 2019, plus four more from January 2020 to August 2021 – all finishes, naturally – earned him a UFC contract. After dropping his debut in a welterweight bout against Elizeu Zaleski dos Santos, Saint-Denis dropped back down to 155 pounds and picked up back-to-back wins and another couple of finishes in 2022.
Saint-Denis takes pride in the speed with which he arrived to the promotion and attributes his knack for taking the judges out of the equation for his quick journey.
“If the fight goes my way, it's always a finish,” Saint-Denis told UFC.com. “I'm proud of that.”
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His most recent win was perhaps his biggest yet: a second-round TKO win over Gabriel Miranda in his home country of France.
The atmosphere at UFC Fight Night: Gane vs Tuivasa was one of the most memorable in the last handful of years, and Saint-Denis called it a “great” moment in his career. However, he has been unable to build on that momentum in 2023. A scheduled fight against Joe Solecki in February was scrapped due to an injury Saint-Denis sustained in training, so when Vinc Pichel pulled out of their matchup at UFC Fight Night: Strickland vs Magomedov, he was happy to have Ismael Bonfim step up to replace him.
“It's part of the athlete life,” he said. “It was a complicated for me because I like to have fights as often as possible.”
Although Saint-Denis had to wait until the second half of the year to make his first walk of 2023, he gets an all-action contest against Bonfim. The Contender Series graduate stunned in his debut at UFC 283 as he put away Terrance McKinney with a perfect flying knee that capped a dominant performance.
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In total, 13 of Bonfim’s 19 professional wins have come via finish. Combined with Saint-Denis’ 100 percent finishing rate, fireworks are nearly guaranteed in the UFC APEX.
“It will be a very violent fight,” Saint-Denis said. “We're very engaged because we are both moving forward a lot. We will see who is going to go down first.”
Saint-Denis said he doesn’t necessarily go into a fight pushing to finish, but it is rather something he can spot and pounce on naturally.
Although Saint-Denis is more comfortable once the fight gets into the clinch, where he can use his solid grappling skills, he credits his well-rounded attack as the reason he is 10-for-10 as far as finishes.
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“If you are a good wrestler but you have no grappling, obviously you will win the fight, but it will be difficult to finish. If you are a good striker, and you get taken down, you get the same problem,” he said. “One of my main focuses is to be aggressive on the feet and on the ground where you can finish your fight. You don't finish your fight with a takedown. If the guy shows me weakness, I will take it.”
As far as this fight goes, Saint-Denis sees plenty of opportunity in fighting Bonfim. His most recent result, paired with a winning streak that dates back to 2014, has built quite the hype around Bonfim. In Saint-Denis’ eyes, that means a chance to catapult himself closer to the shark pit that is the Top 15 of the lightweight division.
He had to wait a little longer than he wanted, but Saint-Denis is chomping at the bit to kick off his 2023 campaign.
“I cannot wait to test myself against (Bonfim’s) skills,” he said. “I think a win against him is something that will put me a lot higher than I'm right now.”
UFC Fight Night: Strickland vs Magomedov took place live from the UFC APEX in Las Vegas, Nevada on July 1, 2023. See the Final Results, Official Scorecards and Who Won Bonuses - and relive the action on UFC Fight Pass!
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