Former welterweight champion and UFC hall of famer Matt Hughes is slated to face former lightweight and welterweight champion BJ “The Prodigy” Penn at UFC 123 on November 20, 2010. This fight will be the third installment in their series and a tie-breaker match, with Penn winning their first fight and Hughes winning the second.
Stylistically speaking, Hughes and Penn are extremely different fighters. They are both great champions, but they have dramatically different approaches to the game. Hughes is a wrestler first and foremost. He takes great pride in his wrestling abilities and has historically used his wrestling skills to control where the fight goes and to dominate other opponents. His submission skills have improved greatly over time, and due to his strength he’s able to muscle submissions into place that many other fighters cannot. His hands, however, have always left something to be desired, never having earned him a knockout victory.
In contrast, BJ Penn has some of the best boxing in MMA. He has an excellent jab and even better shoulder and head movement. His Jiu-Jitsu game is phenomenal and although he’s not known for his wrestling, he has incredible balance and is extremely agile—making him very difficult to take down. One area that BJ tends to be deficient in is his cardio. He has always struggled with this and Matt Hughes knows that coming into this fight. There is no doubt that Hughes will attempt to push the pace with Penn and tire him out as much as possible, and many longtime fans know that BJ’s cardio tends to be his Achilles heel and that he doesn’t perform nearly as well after the second round when he’s being pushed.
While neither of these fighters are under any illusions (whether they say so or not) of a welterweight title run, this is an important fight to settle the score between two top-notch martial artists and it should be nothing short of exciting.
Tags: UFC, Welterweight
