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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
B.J. Penn may be facing a dominating wrestler in Jon Fitch at UFC 127 in Australia, but he's working on improving his boxing skills at the moment, employing the help of Floyd Mayweather, Sr.
Father of Floyd "Money" Mayweather, Jr., and former trainer of Oscar De La Hoya, Mayweather talked to FightHype.com this week about working with Penn ahead of the fight next month.
"B.J. Penn is a cool dude man," Mayweather said. "I'll be honest, at first, it didn't seem like he could fight that good. I mean, I don't know about his ground game and all of that stuff, but he's got some pop and in just the 3 days I've been working with him, he has improved man."
"In his words, man, he told me, 'I ain't never seen some of this stuff you're showing me man.' And that's only after 3 days. B.J. is learning fast man. He's a good guy...If B.J. throws his shots the way I got him throwing his shots, he will win. See, those guys throwing shots different than the way we do it, so I'm teaching B.J. how to keep it standing and be effective. Let me tell you something man, if he uses it, then it will work."
Penn will have a chance to put his improving boxing skills to use on February 27 at the Acer Arena in Sydney, Australia.
Penick's Analysis: How much improvement Penn can make in just a short amount of time is debatable, but it was already a good part of his skill set. Improving that part of his game will make him even more dangerous on his feet, but he'll need to make sure his takedown defense is at its best to keep the fight there. He can absolutely out-strike Fitch throughout a three round fight, but after getting taken down by the smaller Frankie Edgar, and the larger GSP, in fights over the last couple of years, Fitch is likely going to be able to do the same. How he gets up from that, and how he hits Fitch before and after that happens will be the keys to him winning that fight in Australia.
[B.J. Penn art by Cory Gould (c) MMATorch.com]
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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