My initial reaction to Dana White’s announcement that B.J. Penn would face perennial welterweight contender Jon Fitch at UFC 127 in Australia was shock. Unadulterated shock. With a couple of days to think about it and adjust to the cold water thrown on my dreams of a reinvigorated Penn running roughshod once again on the lightweight division, I think it’s a fight with the potential to be very interesting indeed.
My friend Alan Conceicao, one of the smartest guys in the business at making snarky message board comments, made it clear to me that I was looking at it all wrong. It’s easy to get caught up in the Wrestling Observer and Fight Opinion world, worrying exclusively about what will draw money at the box office and what main events will be palatable to the viewing public. There’s a place for all that – after all, without a successful industry, we can all pack up our keyboards and go home. But the bottom line is this: it’s an amazing fight.
We expect great things from B.J. Penn and a win over Fitch would truly be a great thing. If you think about the welterweight division historically, two names stand alone: Georges St. Pierre and Matt Hughes. But other than those two legends, who was better than Jon Fitch at 170 pounds? Who would have beaten him? Even a 167 pound Anderson Silva, in his early days in Shooto, would have had huge problems with Fitch. Heck, in many ways, he’s a much more developed and sophisticated fighter than even Hughes in his prime.
What does that mean? That means B.J. Penn has bitten off quite a chunk here. Is it too big for him to chew? That’s what the UFC is hoping we’ll pay to find out. It will certainly be a hard sell. The UFC has done all it could to devalue Fitch, putting in almost no effort to promote him on television and even moving him to the untelevised undercard despite his status as one of the sport’s elite.
I was too quick to factor this into my mental equations. No, this fight won’t light the box office on fire. But the UFC shouldn’t be criticized for that. They should be praised to the heavens. So should B.J. Penn. In boxing and even MMA, guys do all they can to run from a talented but unmarketable fighter like Fitch. Case in point? Floyd Mayweather’s avoidance of Antonio Margarito in boxing.
My main concern is that this is a clear indication that B.J. wants out of the lightweight division, maybe forever. It would have been easy to hang around and see if Gray Maynard beats Frankie Edgar, giving Penn a fresh title match at 155 pounds. That was the path of least resistance. If we know anything about Penn, we know this will never be the Hawaiian’s path. Penn likes to do things the hard way. In the welterweight division, it doesn’t get much harder than Jon Fitch.