Allan Poole

Special to the News Sentinel

Mixed martial arts fighter Ovince St. Preux and sparring partner Kevin Justin are entangled while grappling at Knoxville Martial Arts Academy when what sounds like a thick tree branch cracks. The noise is followed by a scream of pain. Justin pounds the wrestling mat and writhes in agony with a broken leg. St. Preux freezes in position.

“This never happens; I’ve never seen anything like that happen in my life,” says professional fighter Jason King, standing nearby.

Ovince stays with his teammate after the incident. He and Justin, both Haitian-Americans, speak in their native tongue, Haitian Creole, until Justin leaves for the emergency room. Afterwards, Ovince paces around the gym for a few minutes, a blank stare on his face, and then leaves, too upset to train anymore that night. Two days later, Justin would return in a rehab boot and leaning on crutches after being told he would need a metal plate put in his leg but would be able to return to the sport in a couple of months.

The incident, which occurred Sept. 27, is a dramatic example of why cage fighting carries the moniker “The Hurt Business.” While it’s gaining popularity similar to professional wrestling, mixed martial arts cage fighting is the real deal rather than scripted entertainment. Matches can be brutal; Pennsylvania even temporarily banned the sport.

The Ultimate Fighting Championship organization was formed in the 1990s, then bought by Zuffa, LLC in 2001, which sought to gain the sport a legitimacy similar to boxing. Zuffa instituted more rules and safety measures. The UFC has grown to be the biggest MMA organization in the world, and a fighter making it to the UFC is akin to a football player making it to the NFL. Stars have emerged, including Knoxville’s St. Preux, currently the 6th-ranked light heavy weight fighter in the world.

Knoxville is becoming one of the nation’s hot spots for MMA, and training facilities like KMAA, Shield Systems Academy and Bullman’s Kickboxing and Krav Maga are producing professional fighters. Local fight promoter Valor Fights hosts MMA events in Knoxville. A fight is scheduled Dec 2 in Knoxville at the Civic Coliseum. It will be Valor's last show of the year, says Tim Loy, president of Valor Fights, LLC.

“People think it’s just two cavemen out there trying to take each other’s head off,” says St. Preux, referring to a common misconception about UFC cage fighters.

In fact, the highest ranks in the UFC roster currently are filled with former Olympians and are mostly division one athletes. Sometimes casual fans don’t understand that fighters use strategy to transition between several different fighting disciplines. It’s similar to a college student majoring in five different subjects at the same time, but the subjects of study are Muay Thai, jiu jitsu, wrestling, kickboxing and judo. Step into the cage with a deficiency in any of these subjects and a fighter could quickly be separated from his consciousness.

St. Preux, 33, stands a commanding 6-foot-3½ with a physique that provides definitive proof that not all men are equal. In conversation, he’s humble, warm and soft-spoken.

“Ovince is known as the nicest guy in the gym. He’s always helping the white belt students with their technique,” says fellow MMA fighter Shamir Peshewa.

The son of Haitian immigrants, St. Preux spent his formative years in Immokalee, Fla., in a tightknit Haitian-American community that spoke predominantly Haitian Creole. In this microcosm of Haitian-American culture, says St. Preux, “It was like one giant family that truly cared for one another. If I was observed misbehaving by another parent, they would give me a whoopin’. Then when I got home I’d get another whoopin.’”

St. Preux’s brother, Rene St. Preux, one of Ovince’s seven siblings, says it is easy to understand why his older brother considers his parents his heroes. Both never learned to read because they’d had to work as children. Father, Markinsie St. Preux, lost his mother when he was 3 years old; his father had abandoned him long before that. “On Oct. 22, 1969, when my mother Mercilia was 3 weeks away from giving birth to twins, my father had to leave Haiti. My father was desperate so he paid a man to sail on a small boat to the Grand Bahamas during hurricane season in hopes of finding work to support his family. The weather was so bad he spent eight days out at sea and several of those days were without food,” says Rene.

Markinsie eventually made it to Florida to work in a laundromat. “It was in April of 1981, 12 years after my father first left Haiti, that my parents were finally reunited in Miami,” says Rene. Ovince was born two years later.

The St. Preuxs, like most families from the area, were extremely poor.

“The kids from Immokalee were never given a chance and never expected to accomplish anything,” says Ovince. “So we learned to embrace the role of the underdog. In fact, I love the role of the underdog.”

He found his niche in sports and focused on developing his athleticism. In high school he went 26-1 as a wrestler, excelled in track and field and was named Defensive Football Player of the Year by the Naples Daily News. He was recruited by the University of Tennessee and played defensive end and linebacker during the 2001-2004 seasons. He graduated with a degree in sociology with a focus on criminal justice in 2004.

“Some people think I’m ungrateful or un-American because I carry the Haitian flag into the cage when I fight,” said St. Preux. “Even though I was born in America, I’m a first-generation Haitian-American ... I carry the Haitian flag as a symbol of hope to the children of Haiti that are barely surviving in Third World conditions. I’m showing them they can make it over here or anywhere,” said Ovince.

St. Preux says he fights for his parents.

“To this day, every time I visit them I tell them thank you for what you have done for me and sacrifices you made for me,” he says.

Joey Zonar, St. Preux’s manager, says there’s more to that than just verbal appreciation:

“Ovince will never tell you this, but when he earned his first big payday from his fight at UFC 174 when he defeated Ryan Jimmo, he paid off his parents’ home.”

KMAA owner and head coach Eric Turner credits St. Preux for his work with kids at risk for drug and alcohol abuse “even after he was making hundreds of thousands of dollars as a fighter.”

St. Preux says he lives by two maxims that were handed down to him from his father: “Never worry about what other people think about you and, no matter what happens to you in this life, stay calm and cool and collected.”

Last April, while fighting light-heavyweight champion Jon Bones Jones, St. Preux had his left arm broken in the second round, yet he continued through all five rounds without anyone knowing he was hurt. To dispel any doubts, his coaches posted a picture of the X-ray online. Jones ultimately won the fight via judges’ decision but less than two months later tested positive for two banned substances by the World Anti-Doping Association and is currently suspended from fighting. St. Preux recently fought Oct. 8th in Manchester, England at UFC 204 and suffered a 2nd round knockout by Jimi Manua.

St. Preux has capitalized upon his parents’ sacrifices by playing football at UT, graduating college and becoming a UFC headliner while remaining humble and sticking to his roots.

“At the end of the day, the only thing I’m trying to do is impress my parents and prove to them that I appreciate all the sacrifices they did, working those long hours in the farm fields for next to nothing. I don’t care if I go broke as long as my parents are taken care of. That’s the only thing I’m worried about,” he says.