B.J. Penn knocks out Sean Sherk!
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Last night, B.J. Penn defended his UFC Lightweight title against Sean Sherk. Through three rounds, Penn outboxed Sherk, using his reach/height advantage and pinpoint accuracy to continuously deliver jabs to Sherk’s face. The fight never went to the ground. Penn drew blood from Sherk from the very first round, and both men continued to eschew grappling in favor of a straight boxing match. At the very end of round 3, Penn hit Sherk with a series of punches that threw him backward against the cage. When Sherk tried to duck another Penn punch, Penn rushed in with a flying knee to the head, followed by a barrage of punches once Sherk went down. Though he was saved by the bell, the referee declared Sherk unable to continue when he didn’t get up.
I was betting that B.J. would win, but I never thought he would win with a knockout. During Sherk’s last fight with Franca, Sherk was hit with four or five hard knee shots to the head, and he kept moving forward, eventually winning the Franca fight by decision. So the fact that B.J. won by knockout was even more impressive. If you have a chance to see B.J.’s performance, do. It was definitely one of the better fights I’ve seen. The best thing was that both fighters wanted to fight. B.J. never backed up, and neither did Sherk. They just kept going at it until one of them fell.
In other fights last night, Vanderlei Silva knocked out Keith Jardine in less than a minute, but that should have been expected, since Jardine never came close to Silva’s level of skill.
Lyoto Machida out-boxed Tito Ortiz in what was promoted as Tito’s last UFC fight, and he kept his perfect record. Machida basically avoided Tito’s attacks and aimed punches and kicks into the gaps that Tito was leaving in his attack plan. He was moving backwards the whole time. Chuck Lidell fights the same way. Some say it was a good technical fight; I say it was boring.
(For those who care, Penn is half Korean, and Machida is half Japanese. That’s my excuse for posting this here. Oh, and Catty, we had some technical difficulties, so we had to watch it on the internet. Believe it or not, the quality was very good. So even people without TV’s can satisfy their need to see blood.)
(Picture above from the Washington Post.)
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kimtae
9:16 pm | May 25, 2008Great fight, huge win for BJ and the final period he needed in his statement as the undisputed king of the MMA lightweights. Definitely looking forward to his (please let it happen, please please please) rematch with GSP (maybe he’ll hold two titles at once!).
Great night for Asian fighters. Kim Dong-hyun was impressive in his debut. Yoshida won in under a minute with an anaconda choke. Then Machida and Penn with big wins over top competitors. The only Asian fighter to lose was Nakamura but he never had a chance against a very motivated Sokoudjou (win or get dropped down to the undercard).
Great card overall and a fantastic main event. I thought even Machida-Ortiz was entertaining. Ortiz with his typical antics and venting of frustration were a classic display of his old self. Machida’s technical expertise was incredible and his takedown defense showed some odd influences. There were a couple of times when he frustrated Ortiz using a classic Sumo hip move to knock him off balance. Great, what other light-heavyweight uses Sumo?! Machida has been training Sumo since the age of twelve and was the 2005 Brazilian Sumo light-heavyweight champ.
RebelAzn
1:50 pm | May 26, 2008I saw the fight. BJ was bad ass for sure. He put the beating on Sherk. After the fight, Sherk looked like he got his ass whooped in a bar while BJ looked like he just came back from 15 mins of aerobic workout with little sweat. This kid gonna make some noise for sure.
Overall, it was pretty good. Machida definitely beat Ortiz and I think Tito’s days of dominating MMA is over.
jaehwan
12:16 pm | May 27, 2008Yes, everyone else seemed to like the Machida fight. Someone mentioned that it looked like Machida almost went the whole three rounds without getting hit, which I must say is pretty impressive.
Does anyone else here watch Sumo? It reminds me of Wakanohana and how they didn’t want to make him a yokozuna because he rarely pushed forward. I kind of feel the same way about Machida. He definitely showed some skill, but it would have been nice to see him try to end the fight.
groinpull
1:50 pm | May 27, 2008lol@ your machida comment because that’s why he’s known as a ‘boring’ fighter. He doesn’t engage enough. It’s smart but has a terrible entertainment value for mma fights. I’m on the fence about him because I prefer fighters who go for the kill instead of decisions everytime. He’s methodical but unfortunately he’s also the remedy to insomnia for many fans.
btw, does anyone have a link for the dong kim and yoshida fight? I can’t find it anywhere.