{"id":120311,"date":"2025-09-04T21:55:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-04T21:55:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/120311\/"},"modified":"2025-09-04T21:55:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T21:55:11","slug":"heading-into-ufc-paris-benoit-saint-denis-realizes-pressure-is-a-privilege","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/120311\/","title":{"rendered":"Heading into UFC Paris, Benoit Saint Denis realizes pressure ‘is a privilege’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Benoit Saint Denis had been on a meteoric rise in the UFC lightweight division, with five consecutive finishes throughout 2022 and 2023. But then, on the precipice of a title shot, Saint Denis crashed down to earth in 2024.<\/p>\n

First, in the biggest opportunity of his career, Saint Denis suffered a second-round knockout loss to Dustin Poirier<\/a>. Nearly seven months later, Saint Denis was battered by Renato Moicano, leading to a doctor stoppage TKO loss<\/a> in his first UFC headliner in his own country of France.<\/p>\n

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When he looks back on that period of his career, Saint Denis realizes that the pressure got to him, and he learned some things.<\/p>\n

“I have learned over time that it is unnecessary to put yourself under too much pressure,” Saint Denis told MMA Junkie Radio. “Also, pressure is not a bad thing. It’s a privilege. If you have pressure, it’s because there’s stuff on the line when you are fighting. I enjoy the process. Of course, it was difficult through the last couple of years. I felt a lot of pressure, and I was not used to it. Now I feel back to doing what I love, and that’s fighting and winning.”<\/p>\n

Saint Denis (14-3 MMA, 6-3 UFC) rebounded in his most recent fight, a submission win over Kyle Prepolec in May. The “God of War” will look to make it two wins in a row Saturday at UFC Fight Night 258 in Paris, where he meets Mauricio Ruffy (12-1 MMA, 3-0 UFC) in the event’s co-headliner.<\/p>\n

Check out Saint Denis’ full interview with MMA Junkie Radio in the video above.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: UFC Paris: Benoit Saint Denis views pressure differently now<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Benoit Saint Denis had been on a meteoric rise in the UFC lightweight division, with five consecutive finishes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":120312,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,1299,641,638,65610,82,640],"class_list":{"0":"post-120311","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-dustin-poirier","11":"tag-fighting","12":"tag-mma","13":"tag-saint-denis","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-ufc"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120311"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120311\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/120312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}