Former UFC welterweight champion Matt Hughes has been in Hawaii helping another former welterweight champ, and former lightweight champ, B.J. Penn, prepare for his upcoming UFC 127 main event fight with Jon Fitch set for Feb. 27 in Sydney, Australia.
Hughes is apparently sworn to secrecy on what they worked on but he blogged about the experience today on his website:
We left Vegas on Sunday morning and flew straight to Hawaii. BJ Penn had texted me a couple of weeks ago to see if I had some time to come out and train and get him ready for Fitch. After that initial call I checked my schedule, said I could come and had him send me Fitch’s last five fights. BJ gave me first class accommodations all the way through. I think we got some good training in, I’d love to sit here and tell you what we worked on, but I just can’t. What I can tell you to do is go to BJPenn.com and there are several videos of us on there. I think most of them will have my little Hanna in there as well. It was a great experience for me, first off I got to train with BJ; I think we would both say that we’re a lot alike.
Penn and Hughes have fought each other three times, with Penn winning twice and Hughes once. Their most recent fight was at UFC 123 this past November when Penn knocked Hughes out just 21-seconds into the first round.
With Penn recently decimating Hughes for the second time, it seems a bit questionable just how much value Hughes could add to Penn’s training camp.
However, if you need a good welterweight wrestler to help you prepare, I guess he meets the qualifications, but it would seem a bit more appropriate to have a wrestler who is also known for having a really good stand up game as well, which is what Penn will be facing in Fitch.
Then again, maybe they have that base covered as well. After all, this is B.J. Penn we are talking about.
Regardless of how much value he brought to the camp, it is pretty cool to see two UFC legends with a historic rivalry, now helping each other out. And it is even cooler to hear the music B.J. had playing when Hughes walked out of the airport to get in his car:
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