No fighter ever goes into a fight without thinking that he will win. Well, no fighter except Kalib Starnes, but he’s not fighting for the UFC lightweight title in a month.

BJ Penn and Sean Sherk are two of the greatest pound for pound fighters in the world, and yet they couldn’t be more different. Penn is one of the greatest jiu-jitsu technicians on the planet, he’s limber and he’s agile. He strikes with finesse and versatility and shows some of the best technical savvy out there.

Sherk’s a technician too, but no one talks about his technique. He’s a wrestler, phenomenally skilled, but if you looked at him, you see a man built like a Greek statue, if the Greeks had been sponsored by Balco.

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My fighter profiles have been getting a lot of positive feedback from people, so I appreciate it, and I’ll continue to put them together, but I felt like this series on BJ Penn and Sean Sherk (and, yes, Sherk’s will be out shortly) is one that has to be done, because no two fighters have really danced around each other for so long while remaining so close in level of competition.

There was a time when BJ Penn was considered the most dangerous fighter in the world, pound-for-pound the most frustrating man that you could have standing across the cage.

Even before BJ came into MMA, his skills as a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu practitioner were well documented. He was a prodigy in jiu-jitsu and he didn’t come across the name by accident. Penn is a world class submission fighter, and has one of the most incredible, innate abilities for learning the martial arts. Fighters as legendary as Frank Shamrock, who coached him when Penn first turned to MMA, have always been impressed with his ability to learn techniques and put them into practice.

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I know that there is plenty going on for the Ultimate Fighting Championship right now, but I think that it’s about time we look ahead (besides, there will be plenty of articles written on Serra vs. St. Pierre, and I’ll talk about the aftermath soon).

Still, I’m willing to look past the Serra vs. St. Pierre matchup because I want to aware that the best matchup the UFC has promised this year is coming, and while there’s been some talk, it’s not getting the credibility it deserves, and part of that is political, and all of it is crap.

If you’re still not aware of which fight I’m talking about, I’m talking about UFC 84’s main event: Sean Sherk vs. BJ Penn. It’s going to be a war, and everybody knows that this is going to a challenge for both fighters, because of how perfectly their skill sets match up.

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