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When the two biggest MMA promotions in America line-up fights for their respective lightweight titles on consecutive weekends, it's hard not to make the comparison.
UFC 155-pound king BJ Penn was as good as expected at UFC 107 last Saturday night, when he thoroughly dismantled challenger Diego Sanchez en route to retaining his title via fifth-round doctor stoppage. Seven days later, Strikeforce finally puts on the lightweight championship rematch it's been trying to arrange for nearly a year and a half, as champ Josh Thomson will make good on a second date with Gilbert Melendez.
Multiple injuries to Thomson's leg have postponed this bout with for what must feel like ages to hardcore MMA fans. And while no one expects either guy to be able to put on the one-sided beatdown that Penn mustered against the overmatched Sanchez, Thomson made no bones this week about the fact that whoever wins this fight should be considered among the top two or three 155-pound fighters in the world.
"I think BJ Penn proved last Saturday night why he is the No. 1 guy …," he told me this week when I interviewed him for The Rumble. "(But) as long as BJ stays in the lightweight division in the UFC, I don't think he's fighting the best guys in the world … I'm over here in Strikeforce, (Shinya) Aoki is basically in a relationship with Strikeforce and Eddie Alvarez as well. You're talking the top three guys right there that BJ will never fight, because we're not in the UFC."
The comments made a minor splash on a MMA message boards. A couple of fans questioned aloud how a guy who's most recent win is over Ashe Bowman should be talking trash about another guy's level of competition. Others wanted to know how Thomson could consider himself among the best when he lost to UFC gatekeeper Clay Guida in March of 2006.
But you know what? I like the sentiment. I like the passion. I love that Thomson is showing a little promotional loyalty and talking up Strikeforce's lightweight division the week of a big fight.
Do I agree with the statement? Yes and no.
Penn has at least a couple more great opponents left in the UFC 155-pound division – Gray Maynard and Frankie Edgar spring readily to mind – but after that, things start to look pretty stark for him at lightweight.
And Thomson is right to mention Aoki and Alvarez as guys who'd be next on the list of challengers for Penn in a perfect world. The problem is, it's also going to take a fairly perfect arrangement to get either of those guys to actually show up in Strikeforce, as well.
Both Aoki and Alvarez have been featured prominently in recent reports of a limited talent-sharing agreement between the upstart American promotion and the Japanese company Dream, where Aoki is the lightweight champ. But that agreement – and the possibly unworkable notion that the two companies will unify their titles – has yet to produce any actual fights for Strikeforce.
If Thomson manages to get through Melendez again this weekend and if Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker can secure him bouts against either Aoki or Alvarez – preferably both – then I think Thomson will be able to make a legitimate claim to facing tougher lightweight competition than Penn. Both those are two pretty big "ifs."
The real trouble is that it's hard for any 155-pound fighter to lob verbal grenades at Penn without making it look like sour grapes or hollow trash talk. Penn is just that good.
So while I admire Thomson's fire and certainly have no trouble at all with a little bit of inter-promotional trash talk, it's also hard to take anyone's criticisms about "The Prodigy" seriously right now.
And since when did the best in the world have to fight quality opponents, anyway? Ask Fedor Emelianenko about that.
Chad Dundas is the Lead MMA Editor for The Sporting News and writes a weekly column for CraveOnline. He lives in Missoula, MT.
