12 seconds; that's all it took for Frankie Edgar to take his opponent down.
BJ Penn, long vaunted for his amazing take down defense, found himself taken down multiple times in his rematch for the UFC light weight championship. Not only did Edgar manage multiple (5) take downs, but absolutely destroyed Penn on the feet.
I remember the first time I saw Micheal Johnson run. Initially, I was unimpressed at Johnson leading the pack. Then I took a look at the landscape flying past, providing a way to measure exactly how fast Johnson was moving. This is a rough equivalent to what happened last night.
Edgar is fast, but it wasn't until I had BJ Penn as a measuring stone that I realized how fast. Edgar, looking like the youngest sibling fighting the eldest brother, blurred through combination after combination. What most impressed me, however, wasn't what he landed; it was how he closed.