BJ lands one on Hughes atUFC 123, in a photo by Josh Hedges.
Ex-rivals training together is no longer anything new in MMA. But two former champions always causes a stir among fans.
This time, Matt Hughes hopped a flight to Hawaii to train with BJ Penn, who is getting ready for the trek back to the top with a training camp in Oahu. BJ will face Jon Fitch February 26 at UFC 127 in Sydney, Australia.
Besides Hughes, a tough wrestler like Fitch, BJ has been training with Troy Mandaloniz, Justin McCully, Tiki Ghosn, Floyd Mayweather Sr.
Hughes commented about how the training session went on his blog:
“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.
“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. And number two, I got to spend some quality time with my daughter. I’m on the road a lot and usually my family is at home. This time I was gone for nine days and got to take my 4 1/2 year old daughter with me. One of the things I liked most is that Hanna will most likely remember everything and it was 1-on-1 time with my girl.”