BJ Penn must prepare for Kenny Florian's mind games in his next fight.
Leading up to his rematch with Georges St-Pierre at UFC 94, world number-one lightweight BJ Penn worked diligently to get into the head of the UFC’s Welterweight Champion. It appears now that this same strategy will haunt him for his next bout.
Penn’s next fight will be a mandatory title defence against number one contender, Kenny "KenFlo" Florian. Kenflo is a master strategist when it comes to MMA fights and has shown a penchant for getting into his opponents heads. He once considered himself a finisher and professed his undying desire to finish fights in the Octagon, to prove a Florian fight will always be an exciting fight. That is, until he met up with Roger Huerta at UFC 87 in August, 2008.
Florian, along with every fan and analyst in the game, projected a war in this bout knowing full well that he would eventually go for the finish at some point in the bout. Instead, he proved everyone wrong, especially Huerta, refusing to engage in a brawl. He picked away at Huerta garnering enough points to win a unanimous judges decision. Kenny the Finisher was a thing of the past but then again, mind games are a beautiful thing.
In Florian’s next bout, he ran right through highly ranked contender Joe "Daddy" Stevenson finishing him off at 4:03 of the first round. Leading up to the bout, he stated on a few different occasions that patience is the key and he would not be in a rush. He taunted Stevenson saying he just ‘needed a hug’ if he felt offended that he was being tagged as the underdog. It appears to me BJ Penn may have just met his match.
After the victory over Stevenson, KenFlo sent a message to Penn in his post-fight interview. "I consider you a master, and it’s time to kill that master" making it crystal clear that there was now a bulls eye on the Hawaiian’s back while zooming in on his championship title. Penn may have disregarded these comments, but now they are a reality, just like Florian’s mind games.
Penn is a master at mind games, not just MMA technique in his fights. Against Sean Sherk, he hammered the steroid angle while with St-Pierre, he called the Canadian a quitter and that he was going to "kill him". Another person Penn went after was Firas Zahabi, GSP’s head trainer and someone who is quickly becoming one of the sport’s elite strategists in the game.
Looking at what Zahabi has done with GSP and the team he has assembled for his student’s fights, it’s no surprise that the rest of the MMA world is finally taking notice. With assistance from the UFC Primetime show, we saw Zahabi’s class, honour and professionalism amidst a variety of pot shots and insults from BJ Penn. Zahabi took the high road throughout the show and in every interview thereafter, no doubt frustrating Penn who was looking for a reaction from the Montreal native.
But now, in Penn’s upcoming title defence vs. Florian, the mind games will begin to plague him immediately. Florian has publicly announced that he has decided to travel north bound from his Boston home base, to Tri-Star in Montreal, Quebec, home to Georges St-Pierre and Firas Zahabi. KenFlo is making quite the statement here, upping the ante in what is arguably the biggest fight of his career.
KenFlo is obviously making this selection for a variety of reasons. There is the physical preparation he will have to endure with what will be a combination of GSP’s strength and conditioning coach Jonathan Chaimberg and his own legendary drill instructor Kevin Kearns. Along with Mark Dellagrotte and now Firas Zahabi, Florian is pulling out all of the stops against the UFC lightweight champion.
I spoke to Zahabi to verify a few things and he stated he was looking forward to working with Florian and his team. He understands that this will play into Penn’s head but wants to be sure Florian will be ready to win the title. He mentioned that St-Pierre will definitely be part of Florian’s training camp so he can lend some real life octagon strategies that he has garnered in the seven rounds he has spent with Penn.
MMA fans get ready; the build up for this fight will be chalk full of trash talk as I cannot see either man backing down with their pot shots. Penn is a master fighter and talker; KenFlo has an incredible sense of humour and is known to have some wit in his verbiage. It remains to be seen which fighter launches the first verbal attack, but it’s safe to say Kenny Florian has already prepared himself for the battle of mind games.
