Edgar seizes Penn’s UFC title

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — In the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s first show in the Middle East and its first outdoors, heavy underdog Frankie Edgar won a unanimous decision over BJ Penn on Saturday to claim the lightweight title at UFC 112.

Anderson Silva also successfully defended his middleweight title with an unimpressive unanimous decision over fellow Brazilian Demian Maia, and Matt Hughes stopped veteran Renzo Gracie with 20 seconds left in the third round.

The bouts were held in a temporary arena next to a theme park outside the city center of the United Arab Emirates’ capital, with the humidity and heat making takedowns particularly difficult.

Penn (15-6-1) had been the UFC’s lightweight champion since January 2008, but Edgar (12-1) picked him apart with energy and movement. Although Penn and Edgar spent nearly the entire fight on their feet trading strikes, Edgar took down Penn twice, the first time Penn had been taken down in six years at lightweight.

Edgar, an 8-1 underdog, won all five rounds on one judge’s scorecard and four rounds on another. He fell to his knees when the decision was announced.

“I just hope I can be half the champion he was,” Edgar said.

Silva (26-4) has been the middleweight champion since October 2006. He put on a strange performance in the main event, teasing and taunting his overmatched opponent. Silva stood with his hands on his hips during the second round before bloodying Maia’s face in the third.

But the champion slowed in the late rounds, twice forcing the referee to order him to fight. Maia finished with his nose badly injured and his left eye swollen shut, but kept attacking while the crowd chanted his name.

“I apologize to everybody,” Silva said through a translator. “I don’t know what got into me tonight. I wasn’t as humble as I should have been.”

After cleaning out the middleweight division, Silva’s next fight could be against welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre, who attended the show. The crowd chanted “G-S-P!” during a dull part of Silva’s fight.

Hughes (45-7), the UFC’s former welterweight champion, appeared to be toying with the 43-year-old Gracie until the final minute of the third round, repeatedly backing off after staggering the veteran with relentless right leg kicks and punches. Hughes finally finished with a flurry of punches, leaving Gracie (13-7-1) defenseless in his UFC debut.

“Renzo came out throwing wide, looping, strong punches, so I tried to stay in tight, move away and just do things real simple,” Hughes said. “I’m fighting a Gracie, somebody like Renzo, I’ve got to put the odds on my side.”