Let me start off by saying this: I thought Fitch won that fight. I was expecting a split decision in his favor, but wouldn't have been surprised if it had been unanimous. BJ wouldn't have been surprised either.
All this talk of BJ retiring though is nuts. He just did something that no other fighter in the UFC has ever done before. He got a draw against Jon Fitch, who is arguably the 2nd best welterweight in the organization, and top 5 worldwide (yes, I made those stats up). Despite the result I thought it was an awesome fight. How many guys have taken Fitch's back and come close to choking him out? How many guys, other than GSP, go in there and actually score successful takedowns against him? That's right, there ain't too many, it's a pretty short list, and BJ Penn is on it. He's not done yet, not by a long shot.
Also falling into the "nuts" category is talk of either of these guys getting a shot at the welterweight belt any time soon, which is just as well considering it's going to be tied up for a while between GSP/Shields, and this possible superfight we keep hearing about. There are a few other reasons that a title shot doesn't sound too exciting, one being that fact that I saw nothing in Fitch or Penn that made me even the slightest bit excited to see them face off against GSP again, nor did I see anything new in their games that would make me think they could beat him. Now if they were to face off against Shields..... that would peak my interest!
That brings me to my second point. While I have little desire to see GSP/Fitch/Penn 2, the thought of Penn vs Alves/Condit/Hardy/Kampmann/Shields does get the juices flowing a little. There are some great fights for both of these guys, before we start looking at retreading broken ground. I'm not quite so eager to see more of FItch. He's an incredibly talented fighter, but that doesn't deter from the fact that his fights are always relatively boring. I don't mean to take anything away from Fitch but his grinding out method is getting old. With so many fighters changing their styles, is Fitch better off changing a few things to excite the fans and get more respect from the UFC, or does he continue to just rack up those wins till someone figures out how to beat him?
Let's put Penn vs Fitch behind us, maybe we'll revisit in a couple of years but for now, let's move on.
