-- Ryan Nichols
Jordan Breen; radio host, columnist: Assuming he beats Mike Thomas Brown, there's still an overwhelming amount of solid 145-pound challengers for Faber. Although he's unquestionably the king of the featherweights, Faber really has not faced a large percentage of the division's best, and that includes some fighters Zuffa have under contract with WEC.
Wagnney Fabiano, who may be one of the best fighters in the division, but has yet to get suitable opponents, makes his WEC debut in December against former Shooto world champ Akitoshi Tamura, which should put Fabiano in position to challenge Faber. Also, this coming Nov. 5 card features 22-year-old Brazilian Jose Aldo, who has through-the-roof potential and should emerge as one of the best fighters in the division.
Fabiano and Aldo are just two obvious future title challengers that happen to be under Zuffa contract already. The sub-lightweight classes are just beginning to deepen and expand; which means currently unknown talents will be prospects in the near future. Plus, consider Zuffa's ability to sign other established featherweights.
On top of all that, Zuffa is interested in building towards a watershed bout for the smaller weight classes between Faber and bantamweight kingpin Miguel Torres, which would be both alluring and profitable.
Although Faber definitely has the talent and ability to beat some of the lightweights Zuffa keeps in the UFC's rotation, he is not even a particularly big featherweight, and would most likely struggle against some of the larger 155-pound fighters that would dwarf him.
Lighter fighters deserve to be showcased in the Octagon, where they can reap the benefits of the UFC brand name and exposure.
However; there's tons of challenges for Faber as a featherweight in the WEC, and the desire for competition shouldn't force a move up in weight.
Dave Mandel/Sherdog.com
When it comes to BJJ, some
feel B.J. Penn is head and
shoulders above the rest.
Penn gives GSP many problems. For one, taking down B.J. is not an easy task. This dude has incredible flexibility and takedown defense. And if he is taken down, he ends up taking their back and choking them out.
Second, If GSP can’t take him down and pound him out, what is he going to do, strike? If a gassed out Penn whipped him in the stand up game last fight, what makes you think a focused Penn can’t? …
--Manny Caraballo
Jason Probst, columnist: Manny, GSP-Penn II is an exciting fight. However, I’m on the other side of fence regarding how much BJ allegedly whipped up on St. Pierre. The fact is; he didn’t. He cut him, landed a few punches, and was countering nicely. Pierre landed a lot more -- points-wise -- on the feet. Penn had a slight edge in punches landed perhaps, but St. Pierre landed at least a dozen good lead leg kicks and took BJ down a couple times.
“The Prodigy” hasn’t gassed in fights at lightweight for a couple reasons. First, he’s never on the bottom. Second, he wasn’t facing bigger, stronger guys like GSP is. If St. Pierre takes him down -- and he probably will at some point -- then we’ll find out if Penn’s conditioning holds up in a five-round fight. I’m guessing GSP is even better, too, and wins it handily. But Penn is always dangerous so it will be great to watch. He might be the only guy at 170 or below who would be less than 3-1 to defeat the champ.
Also, I don’t think the UFC would allow Penn to hold both belts at once. And they shouldn’t. There are too many good guys in both divisions that deserve shots and I don’t see Penn fighting six-plus times a year to defend them both.
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