Photo Credit: Tracy Smith/Inside Fights (UFC 101)
Since his return to the UFC lightweight division in 2007, BJ Penn had been unstoppable at 155 lbs. Going into UFC 112 he was in the middle of a five-fight win streak at lightweight, having defeated former champions Jens Pulver and Sean Sherk and high-profile fan favorites Joe Stevenson, Kenny Florian and Diego Sanchez.
Most people expected Frankie Edgar to be number six, with the bookmakers making him an 8-1 outsider. Not only was Edgar significantly smaller than Penn but he seemed a poor stylistic match up for the lightweight champion with neither Edgar’s wrestling or boxing seemingly good enough to defeat a champion who combines freakishly good takedown defense with the best boxing in all of mixed martial arts. Even Edgar’s high-tempo, all-action style was thought to pose no problems to a champion who had overcome his former cardio problems.
Well as the old saying goes, nobody knows anything as Edgar’s boxing, wrestling and energy came together in one explosive package that knocked Penn off the top of the lightweight division. Instead of pushing the action as he had against Florian and Sanchez, Penn was looking to work his jab from a distance and punish Edgar with hard hooks and uppercuts whenever the challenger got close. This reactive, defensive strategy was ill-suited to impose himself on a challenger who was looking to use his speed and power to hit and run. While the fight was close (although the judges’ scorecards were not) Penn retreated to his corner seemingly already aware that he had been defeated and so had lost his long-held title.
BJ Penn is now in the same position that his rival Georges St. Pierre was after his shocking defeat to Matt Serra. Most would still consider him the best fighter in the lightweight division, suspecting that his defeat was more due to a subpar performance and possibly an injury (indeed some are going further and incorrectly blaming it on poor scoring by the judges) than Frankie Edgar being the superior fighter. For Penn to confirm that suspicion and prove that Edgar’s victory was a ‘fluke’ he needs to follow the example of St. Pierre and dedicate himself to reclaiming his title and rebuilding his legacy.
And yet, as always with BJ Penn there is a distraction. Ever since he vacated the World Welterweight Title, Penn has been determined to prove that his victory in 2004 was no fluke. After UFC 107 there was again talk of him being allowed to once again fight at 170 lbs should he succeed in ‘clearing out’ the lightweight division. This was despite Penn’s poor record at welterweight, with the man who put together a five-fight win-streak at lightweight being on a three-fight losing streak at welterweight. At the heart of his poor welterweight form was the issue of size, with fighters such as Paul Daley, Thiago Alves and even Georges St. Pierre pushing the boundaries of weight cutting way beyond what was considered sensible back when Penn won the Welterweight Title.
BJ Penn was once a credible competitor at welterweight, not only winning the title but putting in competitive performances against both St. Pierre and Hughes upon his return to the UFC in 2006. But he is simply not big enough to successfully compete in a welterweight division that is dominated by fighters whose pre-cut weight is comfortably above 185 lbs. A return to the welterweight division will only end in disappointment for Penn, as his physical disadvantages allows inferior fighters to overpower and defeat him. Instead, he should stay at his natural weight of 155 lbs and look to reestablish himself as the dominant fighter in the division by reclaiming his title and so avenging his shocking loss to Frankie Edgar.
