BJ Penn is the spoiled child of the UFC

Frankie Edgar’s lightweight title victory at UFC 112 went almost unnoticed. The Demian Maia/Anderson Silva controversy made much more noise than the belt change in the media. And I have to say that Edgar is the UFC’s most underappreciated champion. Even Jose Aldo from the WEC gets more recognition than him.

I am not sure what the UFC expected when they booked the immediate rematch. The first fight was good without being exciting, and the prospect of a fight between Randy Couture and James Toney – which has been ridiculously hyped as the final arbiter in the boxing vs. MMA debate, which is pointless, especially given each fighter is past their prime – has garnered most if not all of the attention leading up to Saturday’s UFC 118. Even the Kenny Florian vs. Gray Maynard lightweight contender bout is getting more attention.

The only reason why Edgar vs. Penn II is happening is because BJ Penn is the UFC’s spoiled brat of a child.

Penn has had an amazing career up until now. He’s fought and beaten some of the best in amazing fashion. His outstanding boxing skills and his BJJ expertise made him one of the best fighters of the decade and a top-fiver on many pound-for-pound rankings until recently. But what goes up must go down. Penn has been a victim of his inconsistency in the past (a week holiday before the GSP super fight, for example) and with age, failures to prepare or motivate for fights, well, MMA is not a forgiving sport. Penn lost to Edgar.

It was not a spectacular loss, it was not Edgar’s fluke that made him win. It was what it was, a decision loss. Bigger fights have been lost on details, being weak, not placing the foot in the right place, or taking a  split second to cover yourself can be what makes the difference between victory and defeat. BJ Penn had five rounds to finish or win the fight and Edgar stopped him, out-performed him. There is no unfairness in that.

Some people criticized the judges’ decision for leaning towards Edgar. And the trend these days is to dismiss judges’ decisions. This is like figure skating, gymnastics, or diving. As long as judging is not done by computers, there will be mistakes and differences of opinion. But for what they are worth, their decisions are to be respected. If not, their verdicts will soon be meaningless.

So Edgar won and Penn lost. And now the immediate rematch. Some rematches are worth it, if not from a sports perspective, at least because of media hype or because it was an exciting fight. An example is the rematch between Chael Sonnen and Anderson Silva that is in the works – the first bout was exciting and razor close and frankly, who deserves a shot at Silva’s middleweight belt more than the man who has come closer to taking it away from him than anyone else?

The Edgar vs Penn fight was not one of those fights. Edgar won, beating the greatest lightweight in the game. He deserves a chance to defend it against a new opponent, a victory lap of sorts to prove he deserves the belt. Meanwhile Penn can lick his figurative wounds by literally licking the blood of the rest of the lightweight division from his gloves as he proves that the Edgar loss was in fact an anomaly.

Sometimes a division has no clear contenders waiting in the wings to step up immediately. This case can be argued for the middleweight division but not for the lightweight division. With arguably the most competitive division roster, there are a couple of fighters deserving of the next shot before Penn. It only makes sense to have BJ work his way through the division as others have and are currently doing to earn a title shot. Even GSP, even Rich Franklin had to work their way back to the title shot after losing their title.

I respect BJ Penn, but I would have respected him more if he had taken the loss for what it was and raced through one of the contenders (Maynard or Florian again) before trying to reclaim his belt. Frankie Edgar’s win was deserved and legitimate, and recognition should therefore be given, not a rematch.