Nyheter

B.J. Penn om matchen mot Rodriguez: ’It’s going to look like a professional against an amateur’

B.J. Penn går under morgondagen sin första match sedan 2014 då han gick med sin tredje raka förlust vid mötet mot Frankie Edgar, vilket då gjorde att han gick i pension. Penn känner sig nu starkare än någonsin och känner att matchen mot Yair Rodriguez kommer att bli en lätt sådan.

Det här berättade Penn via ’MMAFighting’:

I think Yair and his manager saw me training at the gym (at Jackson-Winkeljohn) and thought, ‘this guy doesn’t have it anymore. Let’s fight this guy. He’s a big name, and let’s try to make our name off his.’ And that’s exactly how this fight got put together,” Penn told MMA Fighting ahead of Sunday night.

Some people from the gym said, ‘hey, Yair is a p*ssy, he’s going to try to fight you because he thinks you’re older,’ and this and that. ‘His manager is trying to push for the fight.’ And I go, really, huh? I was talking to my buddies in Albuquerque, and then the UFC called me two weeks later and offered me Yair. That’s what it was.

I don’t take it as disrespect. I just laugh. And let’s just see. Let’s see if his intuition was correct.

Rodriguez står just nu ned 5 raka vinster i UFC och Penn tänkte aldrig tanken på att tacka nej, då han är beredd att möta vem som helst.

I think what it is, people look from the outside, and they don’t really look in. And they’re like, really, how many people has Yair knocked out? Really, how hard can he hit? Really, how much this, how much that? How much experience? But they don’t add these things up. And a lot of people want what they want, and maybe for their perfect world, it’s not for me to be champion again. In their perfect world, somebody else has to be the champion, and that’s just what you get. But that’s sports. There’s nothing wrong with that, that’s part of the game.

But it wasn’t surprising because you never know who they could match-up with somebody like me. You know what I mean? You could give me anybody. That’s the reputation we carry with us, and the faith of the company, that they know we can handle ourselves in that Octagon. It was never a surprise whenever they offer anybody. Anybody they ever offer me in fighting, I’ll probably never be surprised, unless it’s the guy’s first fight in the UFC.

I’m a fan of everybody, I respect everyone. I’m proud of everybody who decides to take this path in life and chooses this profession. And I think he’s very good, a very solid opponent,” Penn said. “But a lot of people are going to be surprised when I get out there. It’s going to look like a professional against an amateur. That’s what’s going to happen, and Yair is going to be surprised, his coaches are going to be surprised. They’re going be like, ‘oh, I thought this we were going to come between this easy fighter and his big name.’ But we’re going to see. They’re going to see.

[contentblock id=26 img=html.png]

 

Föregående artikel

Krönika: Garbrandt gjorde Cruz en tjänst

Nästa artikel

Daniel Cormier hyllar The Mauler – redo att gå match i april

Skriven av

kimura

Relaterade Artiklar

Sök