BJ Penn

As usual I was doing my morning surfing and found two interesting articles. The first (from MMAWeekly.com) had a quote from BJ Penn on Sean Sherk

“For me, honestly, it’s not personal at all,” he stated. “The man was cheating. I called him a cheater; then he got all personal. So I think all the personal stuff is on him. He said this is the first time a fight’s personal and this and that and whatever. I couldn’t care less. I’m just going to go kick his ass.”

This has become one of my new favourite quotes.

The other interesting news comes courtesy of mmajunkie.com. Mirko Cro Cop is leaving the UFC to fight in a new organization "DREAM 1", his first fight will be March 15th from Japan. Personally I wish Mirko had stayed in the UFC and made another attempt at the title. Frank Mir, Antonio Nogueira and Tim Sylvia could all be good fights for Mirko, not to mention Brandon Vera. Who knows though, maybe this will set up Cro Cop vs Fedor 2 down the line.

Don't forget that UFC Results will have ufc 82 results and ufc 83 results on March 1st and April 19th respectively.

It looks like UFC 80 in January 2008 will feature a bout between BJ Penn and Joe Stevenson for an interim lightweight title. The UFC will not strip Sean Sherk of his title, instead opting to make the logical fight between the #2 and #3 lightweight fighters, then have the winner fight Sherk when Sherk's fight with the California State Athletic Commision is over with.

Sean Sherk tested positive for banned substances following his lightweight title fight against Hermes Franca. Franca also tested positive.

Check out this Amazing BJ Penn Interview which features comments about his recent fight with Jens Pulver and his opinion on steroid use and specifically about Sean Sherk's recent positive test.

Jens Pulver vs BJ Penn
These two met before at UFC 35 in 2002. It was the end result of an elimination tournement which would see BJ Penn defeat both Din Thomas and Caol Uno (in one of the quickest and most brutal knockouts I've ever seen). It was widely accepted that BJ Penn would roll right over Jens Pulver...however, history has shown never to count Jens Pulver out.

BJ Penn dominated the early fight and came within inches (or seconds) of submitting Jens Pulver. Actually, Jens let go and BJ had his arm just as the bell rang. By the end of the fight, Pulver had come back, it was close, but the decision went to Jens Pulver.

Let's take a quick peek at who these guys have fought since that fight:

BJ Penn

• defeated Paul Creighton
  
• defeated Matt Serra (current UFC welterweight champion)
  
• draw Caol Uno
  
• defeated Takanori Gomi (current pride lightweight champion)
  
• defeated Matt Hughes (former two time welterweight champion)
  
• defeated Duane Ludwig
  
• defeated Rodrigo Gracie
  
• lost to Ryoto Machida
  
• defeated Renzo Gracie
  
• lost to Georges St. Pierre by split decision (former welterweight champion)
  
• lost to Matt Hughes (after dominating the first two rounds, BJ suffered a broken rib and got TKO'd in the 3rd round)
  

Ok, that's pretty damn impressive. Especially for a guy who is to be fighting at 155 lbs next weekend.

Let's see what Jens Pulver has been up to since the last fight

• defeated Robert Emerson and Takehiro Murahama
  
• lost to Duane Ludwig and Jason Maxwell
  
• defeated Joe Jordan, Richard Hess, Naoya Uematsu and Stephen Palling
  
• lost to Takanori Gomi
  
• defeated Tomomi Iwama
  
• lost to Hayato Sakurai
  
• defeated Kenji Arai
  
• defeated Cole Escovedo
  
• lost to Joe Lauzon
  

Well, they've both fought guys, but it's pretty clear that BJ Penn has been fighting the better opponents in the last 5 years. Also, the two opponents they have in common, BJ has beaten and Jens has lost to (Takanori Gomi and Duane Ludwig).

I'll let you draw your own conclusions on who is going to win this fight...or you could check out my Ultimate Fighter Finale Predictions post

Roger Huerta vs Doug Evans
Floyd Sword vs Thales Leites
Brandon Melendez vs Joe Lauzon
Andy Wang vs Cole Miller
Rob Emerson vs Gray Maynard
Allen Berube vs Leonard Garcia
Brian Geraghty vs Matt Wiman

That's the Ultimate Fighter Finale Fight card. Stay tuned for my Ultimate Fighter Finale Predictions

If you don't want to know who won, stop reading now!

Last night was the last Ultimate fighter 5 epispode for the first round. The show featured two good fights. First of all, let me explain that a good fight and a competative fight are not necessarily the same thing. Some of the best fights I've seen (my opinion) only lasted a minute or so. I categorize a good fight as one that I enjoyed watching. Great fights have all the ingredient of a good fight and a competative fight.

Somehow, for some reason Andy Wang made it into the shows spotlight again. This was a direct result of Dana White telling BJ Penn that he needs to get control of his team. BJ responds by kicking off Andy Wang for never listening to him. When Dana hears about this he goes into some spiel about possibly needing Wang if another fighter gets hurt...aren't there another 14 guys in the house? Why would you put Wang in another fight when you know that he'll just stand and brawl instead of trying to win? Regardless, Dana puts Wang on team Pulver and team Pulver has an Andy Wang lovefest...rediculous TV!

Luckily, the fights were much better...see my opening paragraph. They were "good" fights, not competative fights.

The first fight was Wayne Weems vs Gray Maynard. From everything we've seen about Weems up until this episode, Weems should be over matched in this bout. It turns out that he was, but he showed a big heart in not tapping. The fight itself started on the feet (as UFC fights tend to do), then went to the ground and ended up with Weems face down, covering up as well as he could while Maynard hit him to the head and body at will...for 2 minutes. Eventually the ref woke up and stopped the fight.

The second fight featured Matt Wiman vs Marlon Sims. I've been wanting to see Marlon Sims fight since much earlier in the show. Sims claims to have had 300 street fights, taken on multiple opponents at once, blah blah blah...sounds a little like Tank Abbott. I was interested to see if any of it was true.

The fight starts off with both fighters throwing a big right hand at the same time. Both shots land, but Matt Wiman's had more of an effect on Sims. Sims was stunned long enough for Wiman to take him to the ground, soften him up a little and choke him out. To Sims credit, he was gracious in defeat. I wouldn't be surprised to see both of these guys fighting in the UFC again regardless of who wins the contract.

So, the regular season is over. Team Pulver won 5 matches, team Penn won 3. Not as lop-sided as it looked like it was going to be. Oh yeah, there was a part of the show where BJ Penn said something about smashing Jens Pulver into retirement. I'll tell you one thing, the series finale is going to be a good show. There are probably 5 or 6 fighters on this season that I want to see fight again.

Please note before reading my list that these are my favourite fighters, not the fighters which are the best. That's a different list, perhaps entitled "Top 10 Best Figthers".

So, I wrote the title to this little entry and now I'm stuck, how do you pick a favourite. I've been watching MMA and particularly the UFC and PrideFC for so long that I feel like I'm picking one of my children as a favourite over another child. It's not fair, but I've made the commitment and now I'm going to follow through with it.


#10 BJ Penn is one of my 10 most favourite fighters. BJ Penn is made of rubber, probably the best natural fighter in MMA. BJ's appearance on the Ultimate Fighter TV series just solidifies this position. The guy is truly funny!

#9 Wanderlei Silva. Silva is an animal in the ring, pure and simple all out agression. A Wanderlei Silva fight is one of the most exciting things to watch. Even his recent losses to Cro Cop and Henderson were amazing fights.

#8 Royce Gracie. When I watch the old UFC fights with Royce Gracie I can't help but be amazed. Certainly Royce had the training advantage over his opponents, but watch carefully. Royce is tough, he took punches and kept coming. Watch his not so old fight against Sakuraba or his fight against Matt Hughes. Royce didn't win those fights, but his toughness came through.

#7 Kevin "The Monster" Randleman. Whenever the "Monster" steps into the ring (or cage), you get the feeling that something super-human is going to happen. Kevin Randleman is a freak of nature, strong and quick. Watching him drop Fedor on his head is still one of my favourite highlights.

#6 Mirko Cro Cop. Mirko suffered a loss recently to Gabriel Gonzaga, but it isn't Mirko's first loss. He came back before and he will again. He's an exciting fighter and doesn't talk trash, for that he's #6

#5 Fedor. Although this is a favourite list and not best fighter list, Fedor deserves to be on here out of simple respect. He's the best of the best.

#4 Matt Serra comes in at #4. Ok everybody, accuse me of jumping on the Matt Serra bandwagon, but Matt has paid his dues in this sport. The first fights I ever saw Matt in were an eye opener to me. I'd never seen anybody transition positions as smoothly and easily as Serra.

#3 Randy Couture makes my favourite MMA fighter list at number three. Randy is a class act, always has respect for an opponent and despite being an underdog in almost every fight he's ever had he's the UFC heavyweight champion at 43 years old.

#2 My second favourite MMA fighter is Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira. He never gives up in a fight, he is tough as nails and seems to always have respect for his opponents. Big Nog is one of the true talents in MMA. In a fight against Nog, if your name isn't Fedor, you'd better be prepared to lose!

#1 My favourite fighter has to be Chuck Liddell. I'm not saying that because Mr Liddell has an upcoming fight with Quinton "Rampage" Jackson. In fact, I'm picking Rampage to win that fight. I picked Chuck because he has consistently said what he was going to do, then do it. No fanfare, no badmouthing, just great exciting fights, usually ending in TKO's.

The Ultimate Fighter season 5 finale will be held at the Pearl at the Palms on June 23rd and will be shown live on Spike TV!

The finale will feature a long awaited rematch between Jens Pulver and BJ Penn

Well, this episode was certainly crazy. Let me list some of the strange stuff that happend:

1) Guys try to pick up girls...horse falls down. Guys pick up horse, girls go bye bye.
2) Guys try to kill each other with spears and a shield. Thankfully testing the theory with a ball first. Decide spear not a good plan.
3) Fat guy and not so fat guy get into it. More like fat guy trying to get not so fat guy worked up. BJ Penn steps in and all is good.
4) Team Penn writes "Suck It!" on a wall, team Pulver goes balistic. Especially Nate Diaz, followed by Manny Gamburyan. Manny goes way overboard...way overboard. The ex Marine looks pretty bored with the whole thing.
5) Manny Gamburyan vs Noah Thomas.

The fight between Manny and Noah seemed like it would be a nice matchup, but instead Manny showed exactly why he's in the house. He was an animal, landing early punches, then taking Noah to the ground. On the ground he maintained top control, passed guard, got side mount and eventually north south. Of course in the UFC north-south is no as devistating a position as it is in pride where knees to the head are allowed to a downed opponent. In any case, Manny finishes the fight with a nice Kimura. It looked like Manny could have snapped Noah's arm with that lock, causing BJ Penn to say something like "A lock like that and you won't be able to wipe your ass for 10 months."

All in all a good episode. The teaser for next week shows the posibility of Corey Hill fighting. I can't wait to see that!

After last weeks exciting episode, I can't wait for episode 2. All week Spike has been throwing commercials at me that look like the fighters actually go at it in the house. I doubt that it ends with punches, but who knows.

UFC.com has had three excellent articles featured this week featuring fighters from the series:

One by Joe Lauzon about the first week in the house, how he felt about the team picking fiasco and finally the fight.

One about Allen Berube (Monstah Lobstah), the restaurant owner who started in MMA to advertise his Monstah Lobstah restaurant in Tampa Florida...there you go Allen, two more internet hits for you

One about Corey Hill, the 6 foot 4 155 pounder who was so intense in episode 1. Hill is a former collegiate wrestler and with his reach, he could be a real force at 155.

Don't forget, it's tonight and immediately after is the Tito vs Dana show. I doubt that there will be a fight involved as it got cancelled, but who knows, perhaps the cancellation was some sort of UFC/Tito trick.

BJ Penn and Jens Pulver picked teams last night. Here's how it looks:

Team Penn
Gray Maynard
Matt Wiman
Gabe Ruediger
Joe Lauzon
Rob Emerson
Andy Wang
Allen Berube
Noah Thomas

Team Pulver
Corey Hill
Nate Diaz
Brandon Melendez
Marlon Sims
Manny Gamburyan
Cole Miller
Brian Geraghty
Wayne Weems

BTW: Team Pulver is up 1-0 after Cole Miller defeated Monster Lobster.

Joe Rogan just did an interview with these two guys and they really look like they don't like each other. They both talked a little trash, with Pulver saying he was going to knock Penn's teeth out and Penn saying he was going to break Pulver's left arm.

This is going to be an amazing season of Ultimate Fighter!

Another reminder, immediately following UFC Fight Night 9, Ultimate Fighter Season 5 makes its debug on Spike TV. This season promises to be very exciting with a good mix of lightweight fighters. It doesn't hurt that the coaches have a little bad blood and an upcoming rematch in the works.

We all know BJ Penn is an outstanding fighter...now it's time to see what kind of coach he is. As for Jens Pulver, I hope he pulls it together after that last loss

Here are the cast members from The Ultimate Fighter Season 5, along with coaches Jens Pulver and BJ Penn

Gray Maynard, Matt Wiman, Robert Emerson, Nate Diaz, Noah ThomasMarlon Sims, Cole Miller, Jens Pulver, Gabe Ruediger, Brian Geraghty, BJ Penn, Brandon Melendez, Andy Wang, Manvel Gambaryan, Corey Hill, Wayne Weems, Alan Berubie and Joe Lauzon

This is a great war. I'd love to see a rematch!

I may very well be the last MMA fan on earth to know this, but apparently BJ Penn broke a rib in his last fight against Matt Hughes. That would explain his complete lack of effort in the 3rd round!

BJ is now back in my good books.