On Saturday, August 8th, 2009, the UFC will make its first foray into the Keystone State with UFC 101 - Declaration. The event will take place at the Wachovia Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The main event of the evening will features the UFC's reigning lightweight champion and one of the world's top pound-for-pound fighters B.J. Penn. He will be defending his lightweight title for the second time, since winning it in January 2008. In his most recent appearance in January of this year, he unsuccessfully challenged for the UFC welterweight title, which is a title he had won 5 years earlier. On Saturday night he will be fighting the UFC's current #1 contender Kenny Florian, who will be fighting for the UFC lightweight title for the second time in his career. He earned his first title shot in october 2006 at UFC 64, but dropped a unanimous decision to Sean Sherk. Since then, he has defeated six consecutive opponents, finishing all but one of them via TKO or submission. Coincidentally, he will be fighting one of his former friends in B.J. Penn for the title. Penn has cemented his legacy in MMA as possibly the greatest lightweight fighter in the world, whereas Florian will be looking to create a legacy of his own by attempting to dethrone Penn and assume the top spot in the lightweight rankings. This bout is also one of the biggest in OTM history, as both men are very accomplished jiu-jitsu black belts that have been longtime friends of OTM, since they began training jiu-jitsu over a decade ago.

The co-main event of the evening will feature a light-heavyweight superfight between the current UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva and the former UFC light-heavyweight champion Forrest Griffin. Silva is widely considered to be the world's best pound-for-pound fighter, as he has been absolute wrecking machine since joining the UFC in June 2006. In just over three years with the organization, Silva has strung together a UFC record 9 consecutive wins. In that time he has won six of his bouts via TKO/KO and two via submission with Dan Henderson, Nate Marquardt, and Rich Franklin (twice) being among the list of his victims. After debuting at light-heavyweight last summer, where he KO'd James Irvin in 61 seconds, he has defended his middleweight title twice and will be looking to test himself at light-heavyweight once again. This time around he will face the former light-heavyweight champion in Griffin, who has been very comfortable fighting with the underdog status. In September 2007, he defeated the heavily favored Mauricio "Shogun" Rua via submission. At the time, Shogun was considered the #1 light-heavyweight fighter in the world. The win earned Griffin a title shot last summer against Quinton "Rampage" Jackson. He again played spoiler by winning the light-heavyweight title by upsetting the heavily favored Rampage via unanimous decision. In December 2008, Griffin lost his title to Rashad Evans and was eager to test himself against top competition in his next fight. That will come in the form of the world's best Anderson Silva on Saturday night. The main card will air live on PPV at 10 p.m. EST / 7 p.m. PST.


Main Card Bouts:

-B.J. Penn vs. Kenny Florian (Lightweight Title Bout)

-Anderson Silva vs. Forrest Griffin (Light-Heavyweight Bout)

-Amir Sadollah vs. Johny Hendricks (Welterweight Bout)

-Kendall Grove vs. Ricardo Almeida (Middleweight Bout)

-Kurt Pellegrino vs. Josh Neer (Lightweight Bout)


Preliminary Bouts:

-Aaron Riley vs. Shane Nelson (Lightweight Bout)

-Tamdan McCrory vs. John Howard (Welterweight Bout)

-Thales Leites vs. Alessio Sakara (Middleweight Bout)

-Matt Riddle vs. Dan Cramer (Welterweight Bout)

-George Sotiropoulos vs. George Roop (Lightweight Bout)

-Danillo Villefort vs. Jesse Lennox (Welterweight Bout)