For a fighter pulled from an important bout at the 11th hour, Alonzo Menifield sure is rolling with the punches.
Two weeks ago, at UFC Vegas 7, Menifield was expected to face off with Ovince Saint Preux in the card’s co-main event. Which is exactly where he’s at this week as well. Thanks to a positive test from Saint Preux for COVID-19, the bout was pushed back two weeks. They now fight Saturday at UFC Vegas 9.
Hearing Menifield tell it, he wasn’t too upset. “When I got the news, I was like ‘aww man, this is terrible.’ I quickly got over it, because we rescheduled. I was happy, and here we are,” he explained during the UFC Vegas 9 media day.
OSP’s management company announced almost immediately that the fight would be pushed back to September 5. The quick turnaround was a surprise to some, but not to Menifield. “He had [COVID-19] early in July. So it’s cycling out of him. He’s good. So it’s not strange,” he said.
Even cutting weight again, for the second time in two weeks, didn’t have him down. “It’s been easy. I have a routine I’ve developed,” explained Menifield. “I’ve been staying at like 215, so it’s super easy. And it’s working.”
In the meantime, he’s been doing his homework on Saint Preux, a longtime light heavyweight veteran who once fought Jon Jones with an interim title on the line.
“Watching film is always good, even when you get more. So I got that,” Menifield said of how he spent his time off. That, and “I was able to recover, do some rehab, extra training. And get my mind ready to fight. So I appreciate it.”
Watch the full UFC Vegas 9 media day press scrum with Alonzo Menifield above. The event takes place this Saturday, September 5 at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas, NV, airing live on ESPN+ (TSN in Canada).
