…and that’s win 2 out of 3 rounds against Jon Fitch.
I sit here on my soapbox, not sad like after UFC 94 or disappointed like I was after UFC 112 and 118. Instead, I was able to leave last Saturday’s fight with a sense of pride because BJ Penn’s hard fight to a draw in the main event made me proud.
I am proud of BJ Penn for always testing himself, going above and beyond what most fighters will ever do and doing so without question or risk of consequence. It is a pleasure to be one of his many supporters and friends.
Jon Fitch, the consensus number 2 welterweight fighter in the world has been competing under the UFC banner since 2005. In this time period he has only lost once to champion Georges St. Pierre in their UFC 87 title match.
BJ Penn was able to silence all doubters and critics Saturday night when the natural lightweight did what no other lightweight fighter on the planet, nor welterweight fighter (outside of GSP) could ever do and that was beat Jon Fitch for two consecutive rounds.
With victory a mere formality, the sound of the 3rd round bell met Penn with a healthy dose of Jon Fitch’s “grinding” style of point fighting that he has cemented his dominance around since entering the UFC.
In the majority of contests the 3rd round would have been scored a 10-9 for Fitch, however, Saturday night two of the ringside officials gave it a 10-8 score. The 10-8 is a score not often seen, not because it is not deserved but because the common judge just doesn’t hand them out often.
When Gray Maynard fought Frankie Edgar for the title in January, that 1st round was a 10-8 round. When George Sotiropoulos got dropped 3 times by punches against Dennis Siver in the first round of their fight one could make the case that that was a 10-8 round as well.
When Jon Fitch sat in BJ Penn’s guard for 4 minutes in round 3 with no advancement in position or attempts to finish the fight, my personal opinion is that if that is a 10-8 round than the previously mentioned bouts were 10-7’s and Gray Maynard should hold the lightweight title.
I don’t want to argue against the score, water under the bridge at this point and I am not even trying to imply that I disagree with it. It is just not common to see and based on historical data an argument can be made against that score for sure.
I tend to look on the bright side in this scenario; BJ took two rounds away from the number 2 guy in the weight class above his natural fighting division. True, there was no victor in their match, and that is too bad, but what BJ proved was that he is top 5, depending on your opinion possibly top 2 or 3 in the world in not one but 2 weight classes.
Penn put it all on the line, and at every corner he puts his legacy in jeopardy to test himself, earn his place in combat history and please his fans.
Job done.
At this point in time, if you look at Penn’s career unbiased and intelligently. If you look at the facts and his record there is a strong case for Greatest Fighter Of All Time. Not because he almost beat Lyoto Machida in an open weight bout, went undefeated at middleweight, or was the most dominant fighter in lightweight history. Not because he is only one of two men to hold two divisional titles, or because he is the only man in the sport to face considerably larger opponents in their prime who not only carry a size advantage, but dominant records with high placement in rankings and high level skill sets. But because, he does it so well, and he never gives up.
BJ Penn, in my opinion, is the best fighter to ever live.
I never give my opinion and I certainly rarely ever write about BJ. I stay neutral on all topics and portray fact in relation to the news. I have on some very rare instances “Blogged” to our readers about circumstances involving BJ that I had inside knowledge of, but for the most part, I just write the news.
Forgetting for a moment that I work and write for BJPENN.COM as an unbiased news reported for our sport. If I worked for www.mma.co.uk dot whatever, I would still publish this story in the same fashion. Because my vision is not skewed with my association. What I say is an unbiased opinion which I tend to lean more on the side of being factual.
BJ Penn beat Jon Fitch for two rounds last Saturday in their three round fight. The world watched in awe as he out game planned the number 2 fighter in the world in route to a draw. The smaller man in the ring, with a more intelligent approach to the fight and a better technical skill set, Penn proved to the world once again why he is “The Prodigy”. And while the sport may have evolved far beyond BJ’s debut in2001 his skill set is still one of the best in the business.
In a time where Tito Ortiz, Chuck Liddell, and Randy Couture where the top names in the sport, when Matt Hughes dominated the welterweight division, BJ Penn was shocking the world and cementing his place amongst that era’s top names as well. And even though those times are long gone, and the Liddell, Ortiz, Couture era is something of the past, BJ Penn is the last of the original greats in modern MMA, still competing and winning at the highest level in the sport in not just one, but two divisions and I am proud of that.
- Pedro Carrasco
No comments:
Post a Comment