At UFC 127 Its Make Or Break Time For BJ Penn & Jon Fitch

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Few UFC main events have thrown up a more obvious and compelling contrast than the welterweight title eliminator bout that headlines UFC 127. BJ Penn and Jon Fitch are different in almost every way except one that victory on Saturday night gives them a shot at redemption while defeat will condemn them to irrelevance.

Jon Fitch has been here before. Indeed this will be his third eliminator bout since losing his first shot at title to Georges St. Pierre in 2008. His match with Paulo Thiago at UFC 100 was designed to propel him to a second title match if Thiago Alves managed to snatch the upset against GSP. While Fitch was able to comfortably defeat Thiago it meant little for his contender credentials as St. Pierre had already successfully defended his title. At UFC 117 he would defeat Thiago Alves in a match promoted as a number one contender’s match but would fail to finish a severely weight drained opponent.

With that victory Fitch improved to an incredible 12-1 in the UFC, a record that on paper is the second best in the promotion’s history. But he had failed to impress fans due to a style that was both one-dimensional and overly cautious. While Fitch is not unique in wanting to get the takedown as early as possible his complete inability to capitalize on positional advantage with a damaging top game has resulted in him not finishing an opponent in over three years.

White’s brutal judgment after UFC 117 was that Fitch had once again failed to impress sufficiently to earn a title shot and so he was passed over in favor of new signing Jake Shields. White’s treatment of Fitch certainly differs with the way BJ Penn has been able to enter the Octagon on Saturday one victory away from a championship match in only his second match back in the welterweight division. Of course there are many good reasons for this not least of which is that BJ Penn is very different to Jon Fitch.

Whereas Fitch’s record is a mark of consistency, Penn’s 6-5 ledger since his returning to the UFC in 2007 shows just how uneven his performances have been. But what Penn has in his favor is that he excites people. His matches are almost always entertaining with ‘The Prodigy’ having plenty of ways to take the fight to his opponent given his excellent boxing and world championship level jiu-jitsu. Unlike Fitch he knows how to end a match decisively as whereas 69% of Fitch’s UFC fights have gone the distance, Penn has only heard the final bell three times since UFC 58. Indeed you have to go all the way back to 2005 for a match that Penn actually won on points. And whereas Fitch is greeted with apathy from the fans, Penn is a proven drawing card with a rabid fanbase in Hawaii and his last six pay per views having all done over half a million buys. It’s no wonder then that when he destroyed Matt Hughes last November that Dana White seized the opportunity to once again move Penn into title contention.

Because of these contrasts Penn vs. Fitch is an intriguing clash of temperament and styles with the winner likely to be decided based on the all important battle between Fitch’s takedowns and Penn’s takedown defense. But they are both are united in knowing that this is perhaps their last chance. Penn may have looked impressive against Hughes but the reality is that he’s 1-3 in his last four fights at welterweight and another defeat will force him to return to a lightweight division dominated by smaller, faster fighters who can push his suspect conditioning to its limits. Fitch may be 12-1 but a second defeat to only the second unquestionably world class fighter he’s faced will confirm the view that he’s a flat track bully who can’t take the risks necessary to defeat the best. Due to the possibility of Georges St Pierre vacating his title the whole welterweight division in flux but whatever happens we can be sure that whoever wins in Australia will be firmly in championship contention.

A Comics Nexus original, Will Cooling has written about comics since 2004 despite the best efforts of the industry to kill his love of the medium. He now spends much of his time over at Inside Fights where he gets to see muscle-bound men beat each up without retcons and summer crossovers.