UFC 127 Fight Card: BJ Penn's Career Highlights, Fight Breakdown and Interview
UFC 127 will take place from the Acer Arena in Sydney, Australia this Saturday night.
One of the sports all-time greats will make his second consecutive trip to the Octagon as a welterweight and B.J. "The Prodigy" Penn (16-7-1) will be looking to stake his claim as the No. 1 contender in the division.
His opponent is Jon Fitch (23-3-0, 1NC), who has won 13 of 14 fights in the organization and is ranked as one of the division's elite fighters.
BJ Penn Career Highlights
1 of 3Highlighted are Penn's most dominant victories, from his knockouts of Din Thomas (UFC 32) and Caol Uno (UFC 34) to his destruction of Sean Sherk (UFC 84) and Diego Sanchez (UFC 107).
BJ Penn: The Breakdown
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Not many fighters can say they made their professional debut in the sports' premier organization.
However, Penn can as he debuted 10 years ago at UFC 31 where he defeated Joey Gilbert by TKO (Punches). A month later "The Prodigy" returned back to action against Din Thomas and the result was the same, a TKO (Knee and Punches) victory.
Fighting for the third time that year in his rookie campaign, Penn put a vicious beating on Caol Uno that took a mere 11 seconds.
Sounds great, right?
Add in wins over Hall of Famer Matt Hughes (twice), Takanori Gomi, Matt Serra, Renzo Gracie, Kenny Florian and Sean Sherk, to merely name a few, and you have a legend in the sport.
The storyline of Penn's career has been motivation. He was so physically gifted that he defeated world class fighters on pure talent alone. Of course he trained and trained hard, but in order to be on the top and stay there, everything in your life needs to be treated with the same respect as the time you spend in the gym.
Penn is a former two division champion, coming into 2010 he was widely considered the most dominating fighter in the lightweight division. However, then came along Frankie Edgar, who derailed Penn (twice), and a jump up in weight was soon the former champion's next move.
At UFC 123 last November, Penn returned to the welterweight division and did so against his biggest rival, Matt Hughes. Penn wasted no time in returning to dominant form as it took him 21 seconds to knockout Hughes.
At the post-fight press conference, UFC President Dana White, wasted no time in booking "The Prodigy's" next fight as he immediately paired him up with Fitch.
Penn has spent the duration of this training camp with the likes of former rival, Matt Hughes, and legendary boxing trainer, Floyd Mayweather Sr.
He enlisted the help of former UFC lightweight Troy Mandaloniz to lead the coaching operations for his most recent fight, and retained him to for this contest as well.
World class Jiu-Jitsu, excellent takedown defense and knockout power in both of your hands is a dangerous trio, and people should not be so easy to forget just how dangerous Penn is.
Against Fitch, Penn will need to avoid any prolong time spent on the bottom, as it is no secret that Fitch prefers to take his opponents to the canvas and grind out a victory. If and when the action does hit the mat, he needs to utilize his world-class Jiu-Jitsu and actively look for submissions, sweeps or opportunities to return to his feet.
Make Fitch work for each of his takedowns and punish him with each attempt at one, while on the feet, he needs to have the willingness to strike as he did with Hughes and not be hesitant like he was against Edgar.
Look for Penn to come out with the same aggressiveness that he had in his last fight and to have the willingness to want to take the fight to Fitch.
BJ Penn Talks How Dangerous He Feels He Is and Why He Accepted The Fight
3 of 3In the video provided above, courtesy of the UFC on YouTube, Penn states that he believes he is the most dangerous guy in the welterweight division and that he is the wrong guy to go up against at the moment.
He explains why he accepted the fight and much more.
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