Penn vs. Guida
BJ Penn must love to fight. After being winless in his last seven fights including six straight losses, Penn will return to the cage on May 11 to fight fellow veteran Clay Guida at UFC 237.
Guida is coming off of a loss to Charles Oliveira last June but had won two in a row before that including a first-round TKO of Joe Lauzon.
Both fighters have recently returned to lightweight after struggling in the featherweight division previously.
Penn has not won a fight since a November 2010 knockout of Matt Hughes at UFC 123. He was thought to have retired after a July 2014 loss to Frankie Edgar where he did not look good. He returned in January 2017 in a loss to Yair Rodriguez, followed that up with a decision loss to Dennis Siver and most recently lost a heel hook submission to Ryan Hall at UFC 232 last December.
UFC 237 will take place from Rio de Janeiro on pay-per-view.
Nonsense
Former UFC heavyweight champion Junior Dos Santos doesn’t think anyone wants to see Daniel Cormier fight Brock Lesnar.
Speaking to MMAJunkie this week, Dos Santos said that he doesn’t think the heavyweight superfight makes any sense.
“This thing where Daniel Cormier wants to fight Brock Lesnar; I know he wants to make money, but it doesn’t make any sense,” he said. “The only one who wants to see that fight or make that fight is him. Nobody else wants to see that. Of course Brock Lesnar he’s a very polemic guy so people like to watch him and they pay to watch him, that’s why he wants to fight him. But man, that would be ridiculous to have him back in the sport and have him fighting for the title already.”
Dos Santos is most certainly wrong that nobody wants to see that fight. Many people want to see the fight, that’s why it’s likely to happen. What he does have a point about is how it’s “ridiculous” that Lesnar would return to jump straight into a title fight. Lesnar does not have an official win on his record since 2010, the same year as BJ Penn’s last win.
One way around that would be to book Lesnar against Jon Jones instead with the winner getting the Cormier fight. That would likely put Cormier and the heavyweight division on hold for some time, which also creates problems.
Dos Santos can insert himself into the title picture if he can get past Derrick Lewis this weekend in Wichita.
Thursday Notebook
-Former Team Alpha Male head coach Justin Buchholz blamed Cody Garbrandt’s training camp, Urijah Faber, and the culture at Team Alpha Male for Garbrandt’s loss to Pedro Munhoz at UFC 235 last week. Buchholz also said he is unlikely to ever return. “Urijah would have to lick my boot if he wanted me to go back in that gym and even then I don’t think I’d do it.”
-Jan Blachowicz is calling for a fight with Anthony Smith. “I’m free, you’re free…We both have something to prove,” he tweeted.
In case you missed it
–ROUNDTABLE: Was the stoppage in the Ben Askren-Robbie Lawler fight the right call?
–NEW PODCAST: MMA Scope with Cole Henry and Patrick Shaheen talking UFC 235 and more
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