Ultimate Fighting Championship lightweight belt holder BJ Penn and former champion Sean Sherk will not face each other before May, but the war of words between the two has been heating up in recent months.
Sherk still feels like a champion and, after the comments made by Penn in the interview after beating Joe Stevenson at UFC 80, Sherk says: “Now, it’s personal.”
In the interview given to Joe Rogan, shortly after the fight at UFC 80 and still in the Octagon, Penn stated: “Sean Sherk, you are a dead man.”
Needless to say, the comment angered Sherk, as he immediately left his commentary position and entered the Octagon.
“I think it was a very inelegant stance, but what can I do? I think it shows the type of person BJ is, so that will be an added factor when we fight in a few months,” Sherk told MMAWeekly.
Sherk confirms that Penn's statements affected him.
“I was clearly ripped off. I thought, I would rather fight every day that week than sit on the sidelines and just watch, which is why it was so hard to just watch the show and then still be disrespected. It wasn’t something easy to face”, pondered the 34-year-old former champion.
Sherk plans to use Penn's insults as motivation to train, stating that “it definitely activated an extra source of motivation, as I train hard under normal conditions without ever facing any opponent that I have any kind of personal issues with. But now I have a personal problem with my opponent.”
“He attacked me personally; He said a lot of things about me that weren't true. This motivates me to train even more. I think: I can't lose to a guy who's talking shit about me. That’s definitely something I can’t let happen, so I’m going to prepare really hard to make sure I win this fight.”
Although Penn is the current UFC lightweight champion, Sherk believes the belt still belongs to him. As he had his title stripped due to a positive test for Nandrolone, a result he disputes, Sherk is eager for the opportunity to regain the belt.
“I still feel like a champion. For someone to become champion, I think they first need to defeat the current champion.”
“It will be exciting to get back there as this has been a long layoff. A lot has happened over the last few months and it will be good to have it all behind me for support. It will be good to pick up what was left behind, get my career back on track and get back everything that always belonged to me.”
At the same time as he was sitting next to the octagon, commenting on the Penn-Stevenson fight, in Newcastle/England, Sherk was observing his future opponent, trying to identify strengths and weaknesses that he could exploit in the expected confrontation.
He assesses, “I saw some things in the boxing game that maybe I can exploit, I also saw points in the ground game that I can take advantage of. You just need to train to reach your full potential. You need to surround yourself with the best coaches and training partners; prepare for everything that could happen, because when you're in the cage fighting, in the blink of an eye something can happen that changes your entire strategy.”
Sherk continues, “As far as a light weight goes, I don’t think anyone has offered the B.J. Penn the difficulties I will create.”
Sherk and Penn were well-ranked middleweight fighters, but they never faced each other in that weight division. When Penn took the vacant UFC lightweight title from Sherk, the fight became inevitable.
“I've been waiting for this fight for a long time”, explains Sherk. “Finally, it will happen. It will still take some time and I can’t wait for the moment to overcome this challenge.”
Comments