This weekend, live from the City of Brotherly Love for the first time ever, we have UFC 101: Declaration. It should play out as a learning lesson for both Forrest Griffin and Kenny Florian. B.J. Penn is out to prove he has not lost his game or motivation since gaining the UFC Lightweight strap in January 2008. Saturday we will all see the killer instinct that earned Penn the belt in the first place. After Penn’s last bought with Georges St. Pierre it seemed as though he may have lost it, but now coming back down to his normal weight, he will be back in the form we remember. And, lets be honest here, Georges St. Pierre is a freak of nature, a physical specimen. Did anyone actually see Penn getting out of there with GSP’s belt? I didn’t think so. Moving on, Kenny “K Flo” Florian will be getting his second shot at the 155lbs. belt after ripping off 6 consecutive wins. Florian is a great fighter and will not be a slouch for Penn, but I think ultimately there is no way Penn will lose or let himself lose his title. Both of these fighters are strong and tough and I think we can expect to see a lot of bloodshed during the bout, but in the end, I think Penn will be walking away with his belt still in hand.
The other main event for the evening would be Anderson Silva taking on Forrest Griffin. A lot of people, including myself, Zach Attack and Jack Potts, felt a little ripped off after Silva’s last bout. In his last fight with Thales Leites (also fighting at UFC 101) Silva refused to go to the mat and play into Leites strongest part of his game. This made for an unbelievably boring match. The same thing happened at UFC 90 when he went up against Patrick Cote. All of this leads me to believe this match up is a message from Dana White to let Silva know to quit messing around. Ultimate Fighter 1 winner and former UFC Light Heavyweight Champ Forrest Griffin will be no cake walk for Silva because, unlike Leites, he is more of street fighter and will fight Silva standing up. That could prove to be good or bad. In his media workout interview, Silva proclaimed that he had been training for a “15 minute standup war.”
“I hope he comes in there and we get to see a standup war for 15 minutes,” Silva said through Soares. “I can guarantee you I’ve prepared to go 15 minutes for a standup war and I can guarantee you someone’s going to fall.”
And fall I am sure they will. I am looking forward to seeing how things pan out for these fighters. All I know for sure is that we are going to see 2 great slobberknockers from 4 highly trained and talented individuals. This is definitely worth the money for PPV. The other fights on the undercard are listed here:
Lightweight bout: Shane Nelson vs. Aaron Riley
Welterweight bout: Tamdan McCrory vs. John Howard
Middleweight bout: Thales Leites vs. Alessio Sakara
Welterweight bout: Matt Riddle vs. Dan Cramer
Lightweight bout: George Sotiropoulos vs. George Roop
Welterweight bout: Jesse Lennox vs. Danillo Villefort
Quote Source: Yahoo Sports
