UFC 80

BJ Penn vs. Joe Stevenson

Originally posted to Jan 10, 2008 @ http://www.wider-vision.com/sports/mma




The major strength of BJ's game is his circus contortionist flexibility. He does the splits to defend single leg
takedowns. He can bring his legs up to his head without pulling them. He creates all sorts of situations on the
ground that fighters simply don't see. Randy Couture (#1 or #2 heavyweight in the world) has trained a couple of weeks
with BJ, and said he has a very hard time taking him down, and cannot keep him there.



Joe seems to pick up the majority of his wins via submission. Joe's ground game from the bottom seems to consist
mostly of a very strong left-side guillotine choke. Joe seems very willing to pull gaurd and go to his back on
purpose, if it means he can get a guillotine attempt in. He may get away with this on lesser fighters, but to say BJ
is unlikely to get caught in a guillotine is a bit of an understatement. (Does BJ even try double-leg takedowns?)
If Joe pulls a guillotine/gaurd, he can expect to spend the rest of the round on his back, assuming he doesn't get
tapped out.



The Hype: BJ is back! BJ is back! He's re-dedicated himself to training! Right. I'll believe that
when I see it. In the Pulver fight, he wasn't the ripped, low body fat BJ from his earlier lightweight days. Even at
155, he was still carrying a lot of "puppy fat". (I'm saying puppy, and he's my age. I guess some people age better
than others.) His apparent strength advantage on Pulver came more from the fact that he was fighting a
featherweight... not a lightweight. And that was the fight was one of those "This time... it's personal" affairs.



Show me a picture of BJ on a treadmill with a time stamp reading more than 10 minutes on it, and maybe I'll be
convinced. Until then, I'm not holding my admittedly shallow breath. Unfortunately, this is not translating into a
betting line advantage. It is well known that BJ's conditioning simply isn't up to snuff.



The Reality:I think Stevenson is in for some big problems. Here's why:

The reason BJJ has become such a non-force at the highest levels of MMA now is because all of the top fighters are
now very well versed in submission defence, at the very least. Most are also BJJ black belts, or Gracie purple/brown
belts. And they all train BJJ defence every day. But there in lies the problem. They can only train against the BJJ
of the other guys in their camp. The ONLY way to train against circus contortionist BJJ is to train against BJ.
There is NO ONE else that brings his style of Jiu-Jitsu to the table.



While I don't think Joe Daddy has the hands, takedown or ground skills to finish BJ, I also don't think BJ has the
conditioning to win 5 rounds. If BJ doesn't get a tapout or a TKO in the first three rounds, he had better win them
all, because he's probably not going to have much left for rounds 4 or 5. Don't get me wrong...I love BJ. He's laid
back, relaxed, super-talented, likes to party it up, and seems like an all-around fun guy to hang around. But we have
to be objective. 25 mintues is a full week worth of cardio for BJ.



I give this fight to BJ 75% of the time. Given the current Pinnacle odds of -262 on BJ, (72% BJ) and my 5%
margin for error, that makes the fight a no play.