BJ Penn dominates Diego Sanchez to retain the UFC Lightweight Championship

Last night's lightweight title fight saw B.J. Penn confirm his status as the untouchable king of the UFC's lightweight class.

B.J. Penn came out and claimed center ring. From there he mercilessly battered Diego Sanchez. Before the first minute of the round was expired, B.J. Penn had dropped Diego Sanchez and followed it up with damage on the ground. But somehow Diego Sanchez survived and got back to his feet. It wasn't long before Diego ate a hard uppercut that rocked him. Diego worked for a takedown that didn't go anywhere. But he scored with a combination as Penn escaped. Penn stalked Sanchez who fired back with kicks. Sanchez shot but Penn sprawled. Sanchez landed an uppercut and a flying knee late, but Penn tagged him on the button again to end the right, staggering Sanchez.

Round two saw Penn again claim center ring. Sanchez fired for a single leg and forced Penn against the cage. Penn escaped and dodged a big uppercut from Sanchez. Penn began to initiate exchanges and hurt Sanchez. Diego struggled while backing up, but moving forward only allowed Penn to counter. Penn even threw a low kick toward the end of the round. Then he tagged Sanchez with punching combinations. Sanchez shot again in the last 0:30 and scored with an uppercut on the break. But Penn punished him to close the round.

In the third, Sanchez charged in but ate counters to open the action. Penn scored with a left hook. Sanchez shot again. He ate uppercuts for his troubles. Penn hunted his prey. Sanchez looked for the left high kick then shot. Penn elbowed him before escaping. Penn turned up the pace and began to batter Sanchez. Sanchez forced it to the cage again but Penn ended up reversing him and going for a take down of his own. Sanchez evaded it but got hurt in the process. Again Penn ended the round scoring on a hurt Sanchez.

Sanchez entered the fourth behind a visibly broken nose. Penn scored with a hard counter in the first exchange of the championship rounds. Penn stalked him down and scored a vicious one-two. Diego shot again only to get lit up by Penn. As Penn advanced all Sanchez had to answer with was heart. When Sanchez attacked with punches, Penn scored with hard hard counters. When Sanchez shot for a single, Penn stuffed it. Penn landed knees and punches to close the round.

The fifth round saw Sanchez nursing a horribly cut lip as B.J. Penn danced untouched in his corner. Penn landed a body shot to open it. Sanchez shot again, fruitlessly. Penn hit a switch to stagger Sanchez. Sanchez pulled guard then rolled and Penn stuff that too. Back on the feet, Penn evaded a high kick before coming forward. A high kick from Penn followed by a nasty series of uppercuts showed that the champion wanted to get the finish. Sanchez was badly badly cut by a brutal combination of knees and punches from Penn and the fight is stopped.

-B.J. Penn is scary good. Penn made Diego Sanchez's face look like a Diaz brother by the end of this fight. Sanchez offered no threat to B.J. at any point during the bout. With no obvious contender waiting in the wings, it will be interesting to see who Dana White and Joe Silva find for Penn to fight.

-FightMetric released their report for last night's main event. Even with the universally acknowledged dominating performance from Penn, the data is quite shocking.
Get this: Sanchez landed all of eight strikes throughout the duration of the fight. Eight. Penn landed more than eight jabs to the head in each round. Let that sink in for a second. Sanchez threw 108 strikes during the fight. That's a success rate of 7%.
Meanwhile, B.J. landed 150 of 214 strikes for a land rate of 70%. Gross.
In the grappling department, Sanchez attempted 27 takedowns, completing zero.
In the words of Shirley Evans, "He dominated your will, Rashad."

"In 10 years of being in this business, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen anybody more busted up than Diego is right now. His whole lip is split open in half, in two different places. When I say split open, it’s torn down to this stuff down here (indicating a point on his chin). His forehead is as open as [Marvin Eastman] the kid that Vitor Belfort kneed [at UFC 43]. They pulled that thing wide open. His face? I think his nose is broken. I don’t even know how Diego kept coming forward. He’s a tough kid, man. I’m almost positive his nose was broken by the third round. That Tony Robbins shit works." -Dana White, talking about the damage Diego Sanchez received from BJ Penn on the UFC 107 Post-Fight Press Conference.