BJ Penn lived up to his press clippings and his almost legendary status in MMA by beating the shit out of Sean Sherk. Penn has better stand-up than Sherk by far, and also has a better ground game than Sherk, so really the only thing Sean Sherk could have done was try to use his only advantage, better conditioning, and he didn't do that. He just got the piss beat out of him.

What could he do, after all? In hindsight, you could advise Sherk to try to lay all over Penn and tire him out. But that's not easy to do, because Penn has good takedown defense. You see a bigger, stronger guy, Sean "Muscle Shark" Sherk, and you see a guy with an average build, BJ Penn, and you think Sherk is going to be too strong for him. But isn't that what martial arts is all about? Taking the smaller guy, teaching him stuff, and then he beats the crap out of the bigger guy.

I like the fact that BJ Penn still doesn't have an exceptional physique. He just looks like a normal guy out there. He lets his skills do the talking. You can pump iron all you want. It's not going to protect you from BJ Penn.

UFC Wired just aired BJ Penn's first fight with Matt Hughes for the UFC welterweight championship. Hughes was coming off a lot of consecutive wins, defending his title and establishing his reputation as the best welterweight in history. I don't know who he was supposed to fight, but whoever it was, he didn't show up, and the UFC called BJ Penn a week before the fight to ask him to step in and fight for the welterweight title even though Penn is a lightweight, not a welterweight. Crazy BJ Penn said yeah, okay, sure, a week is good. Then Penn beat up Hughes, because Penn is a much better fighter than Matt Hughes ever was. Penn ended up choking him out with the lion killer.

I was happy that Axe Murderer Wanderlei Silva beat Keith Jardine in half a minute. I like the Axe Murderer. He's the nicest axe murderer I ever knew. He was awesome in Pride but he came up a bit short in the UFC until now. He's fighting great guys, what do you want? Plus he's a few years past his prime. Still he is extremely explosive, and up against a slugger like Keith Jardine, well you need some defensive skills to handle Wanderlei, and Jardine doesn't think defensively. He just bangs away. That didn't work against Wanderlei this time. It's nice to see a "legend" like Wanderlei not just fade away into the sunset, but show the spark he used to show. He beat that poor boy something awful. I was rooting for him.

Tito Ortiz has become a pretty boring fighter. He basically just wants to lay on people and elbow them. Machida is mister "Youth will be served". Machida was given a decision over Ortiz. Machida's star is rising and Ortiz's prime is gone. Tito Ortiz has become a gatekeeper, and will be leaving the UFC for other pastures. Machida has just been admitted past the gate. A title shot is in his future if he doesn't run into a roadblock along the way. He's a light heavyweight, in Rampage Jackson's division. I think Machida would have a decent chance against Rampage, if Rampage defends successfully against Forrest Griffin in his next title defense. And if Griffin pulls an upset, I think Machida would have a good shot at Griffin as well. Machida is right there in the mix.

One thing I would advise Machida to do is avoid Mauricio Shogun Rua. There's no point in Machida fighting Shogun in a non-title fight. And I can see Dana White setting that up. It is not in Machida's best interests to fight Shogun unless the world championship goes to the winner. Why risk it? Shogun knocked Rampage Jackson out a few years ago. So he lost to Griffin, shit happens.

For that matter, Machida may as well try to avoid Wanderlei Silva too, unless the title is on the line. I guess Dana White has the right to make Machida fight one more good guy before getting a title shot. The guy is undefeated and deserves one. Just one more fight, and then put him in with the winner of Jackson-Griffin. Then let him take on Shogun and Wanderlei and Chuck and the rest. This is a great division.

I wish there was a season, like in the team sports. Invite Rampage Jackson, Forrest Griffin, Lyoto Machida, Chuck Liddell, Shogun Rua, Wanderlei Silva, Dan Henderson, Rashad Evans. Let them all fight all the others. The two with the best record at the end of the year fight for the world championship. This division is deep enough to have 8 or 10 guys all fighting each other without any mismatches. Sokoudjou, Jardine, Thiago Silva, Stephan Bonnar, you could even expand the tournament to 12 if you had time. Very deep division.

But I guess you can't ask these guys to fight so often so you're back to maybe a double elimination tournament, not a round robin. Two losses and you're out. Sign up 8 or 16 guys. May as well get the WEC champ, the Marine, whatshisname, Brian Stann, in there too. He's good. He might be over his head here though.