GSP Vs Penn

Fights have been finalized for UFC 94: St. Pierre vs. Penn II.  The main event is a Super-Fight between current UFC Welterweight Champion Georges St. Pierre and current UFC Lightweight Champion Bj Penn.  This is a Welterweight Championship fight, not a winner take all fight.  It is the first time the UFC will feature a fight between two UFC Champions.

In their first matchup, Georges St. Pierre won a razor thin split-decision against Bj Penn.  Penn battered and bruised St. Pierre early but GSP survived and fought a more technical fight to earn the victory.  Bj is coming off a win against Sean Sherk in which he destroyed the former Champion.  St. Pierre is coming off a similarly impressive win against Jon Fitch.

Interestingly, Jon Fitch will also fight on this same card against Akihiro Gono.  A few months ago this bout would have surely been on the main card, but since Fitch seems to have fallen out of the UFC's good graces it would appear he is being punished by being on the Preliminary card.

Here is the complete card of this UFC Event:

MAIN CARD

Georges St. Pierre vs. B.J. Penn
Lyoto Machida vs. Thiago Silva
Stephan Bonnar vs. Jon Jones
Karo Parisyan vs. Dong Hyun Kim
Nate Diaz vs. Clay Guida

Besides the main event, there are a couple of great fights on this Main Card.  Lyoto Machida vs. Thiago Silva is an excellent matchup of an elusive style fighter in Machida and a very agressive striker in Thiago Silva.  Thiago has been on a tear through the Light Heavyweight division winning four straight including wins against James Irvin and Houston Alexander.  Also, watch for the Nate Diaz and Clay Guida fight as it has the potential to be Fight of the Night.  Diaz is a durable Lightweight fighter with excellent submissions and Clay Guida is known for his ground wars.

Here is the Prelimary Card:

PRELIMINARY CARD

Jon Fitch vs. Akihiro Gono
Manny Gamburyan vs. Thiago Tavares
John Howard vs. Chris Wilson
Jake O'Brien vs. Christian Wellisch
Matt Arroyo vs. Dan Cramer

The other combatants are expected to be Preliminary Card fighters, but Jon Fitch has proven his mettle in the UFC and Gono is certainly no slouch himself.  Hopefully the fight will be aired.

Dana White went off the deep-end again recently cutting top Welterweight contender UFC Fighter Jon Fitch.  White said he would not be dealing with Fitch or anyone else with American Kickboxing Academy.

Said White in an interview, "We're looking for guys who want to work with us and not against us, and frankly I'm just so [expletive] sick of this [expletive] it's not even funny."

The problem apparently stems from a new UFC game in the works for 2009.  The makers of this UFC video game want lifetime rights to the UFC Fighters in the game and Jon Fitch has a problem with that.  "I'm more than willing to work with them, but I don't see why we have to give up our whole lives for this," says Fitch. "Why not a time limit? If we did a 10-year deal with them, is that unreasonable? I don't understand how this happened, honestly. It's tough."

This whole thing to me is borderline insane.  I don't think it's unreasonable for Dana White to ask for his fighters to participate in this video game.  I do think it's unreasanable for him to think that it's appropriate for him to can one of his fighters because they might want to be involved in another video game some time in the future.  Not only that, White decides to flip out about this at a press conferance and thinks that we should all just agree with his tantrum.

Jon Fitch seems like a level headed dude.  He's put in work in the octagon and racked up a record matching winning streak for the UFC.  Why would White go after this guy in that manner?  It makes zero business sense to take this public.  It seems like Dana White's emotions got the better of him.  I don't think it was in the UFC's best interest to let this make headlines.

Any way, Dana White got his way again.  Jon Fitch went ahead and signed the agreement for the video game and he has been returned to UFC fighter status.  He is again scheduled to fight Akihiro Gono at UFC 94 in January.