("Minced martial arts is great. I watch it all the time.")
It looks like former UFC lightweight and welterweight champ BJ Penn has brought in a new secret weapon to help him prepare for upcoming UFC 127 bout with perennial contender Jon Fitch in Australia.
Fight Hype is reporting that “The Prodigy” has spent some time in Las Vegas honing his pugilistic skills with acclaimed boxing trainer Floyd Mayweather Senior.
The father of IBO, IBA, IBF and WBC welterweight and WBC super welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Junior, Senior has trained several top boxers including his son, Oscar De La Hoya, Leila Ali, Ricky Hatton, Joan Guzman and Chad Dawson.
“Joy” says that when “The Prodigy” first showed up at his gym, his nickname didn’t seem to be an accurate description of the Hilo, Hawaii native’s fighting prowess, but with a few days of his tutelage, Penn picked up a lot.
“BJ Penn is a cool dude, man. I’ll be honest, at first, it didn’t seem like he could fight that good. I mean, I don’t know about his ground game and all of that stuff, but he’s got some pop and in just the three days I’ve been working with him, he has improved, man,” he says. “In his words, man, he told me, ‘I ain’t never seen some of this stuff you’re showing me, man.’ And that’s only after three days. BJ is learning fast, man. He’s a good guy.”
Strikeforce has a lightweight champion, Gilbert Melendez, whose only fight in 2010 was a win over the lightweight champion of Dream, Shinya Aoki, and who keeps talking about his desire to fight the lightweight champion of Bellator, Eddie Alvarez. So doesn’t Strikeforce have any of its own lightweights for its champion to fight?
To hear 
I can’t help but think that maybe, as a child, Nick Diaz saw one too many after-school specials about bullying and came away with the wrong message. Somehow, somewhere in the spooky corridors of his mind, the notion took route that you can’t allow yourself to respect anyone until after you’ve beaten them in a fight.
MMAFighting.com has the disclosed fighter purses for this past Saturday’s Strikeforce: Diaz vs. Noons 2 event from the HP Pavilion in San Jose, Calif.