UFC Betting: Penn vs Sanchez

B.J. Penn and Diego Sanchez have kept the posturing to a minimum as Saturday's UFC lightweight title fight in Memphis approaches.
The same can't be said about the fighters' swarming camps, which opened up Thursday night about their fighters, their game plans and their thoughts on the other guy.
Asked for his opinion of Sanchez, the 27-year-old challenger, Penn's longtime trainer Rudy Valentino didn't bury the texted lede: "Diego will defeat himself mentally in this fight."
Sanchez's legendary Brazilian jiu-jitsu coach Saulo Ribeiro laughed.
"He's one of the strongest guys mentally I've ever met in my life," Ribeiro said over the phone. "He just refuses to give up. He refuses to quit."
So, why will Sanchez be the first fighter since Jens Pulver in 2001 to defeat Penn (14-5-1) at 155 pounds?
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"I think B.J. has been a great champ for 10 years, but the sport is evolving so much that I think Diego is ready to take it to the next level," said Ribeiro, implying Penn, one of MMA's most complete fighters, still just 30, has gone the way of month-old organic milk.
Back and forth, not malicious but invested and full of faith, supporters talked up their man and downplayed the other. Standing out on both sides was a sense of inevitability, as if the main event at the FedExForum (UFC PPV, 10 p.m. ET) was mere formality. And that determination was going to be the difference.
"It's the natural order," said Ribeiro, who joined his brother Xande, cardio man Steve Maxwell, boxing trainer Tony Palafox, and Olympic silver medalist wrestler Steve Abas in San Diego to prepare Sanchez (21-2). "Nobody hunted B.J. That's what I want to see. How will the champ react? He's never been hunted at 155. And Diego really believes he'll be the aggressor and will take the fight wherever he wants."
Belief and execution aren't the same thing, countered Penn's boxing trainer Jason Parrilo, who ran camp in Costa Mesa, Calif., with conditioning gurus Marv and Gary Marinovich (of the Todd Marinovich Marinoviches), and the entertaining Rudy V.
"Diego hasn't shown my any type of threat but his intensity and his willingness to go for it," Parrilo said. "With B.J., he's going to fall into something he's not prepared for.
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