{"id":151349,"date":"2015-06-23T11:24:45","date_gmt":"2015-06-23T18:24:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/?p=151349"},"modified":"2022-02-04T18:47:19","modified_gmt":"2022-02-05T02:47:19","slug":"melendez-on-iaquinta-better-fight-him-now-before-he-gets-better","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/ufcnews\/melendez-on-iaquinta-better-fight-him-now-before-he-gets-better\/","title":{"rendered":"Melendez On Iaquinta &#8212; &#8216;Better fight him now, before he gets better&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Gilbert-Melendez.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-128323\" src=\"http:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Gilbert-Melendez.png\" alt=\"Gilbert Melendez\" width=\"730\" height=\"380\" srcset=\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Gilbert-Melendez.png 730w, https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Gilbert-Melendez-300x156.png 300w, https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Gilbert-Melendez-585x305.png 585w, https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Gilbert-Melendez-390x203.png 390w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 730px) 100vw, 730px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;No, I would&#8217;ve taken it against anybody, as long as it wasn&#8217;t a five-rounder. I&#8217;m interested for 15 minutes, let&#8217;s do it. I think Al is a tough guy. He&#8217;s one of those guys that I feel like I might as well get now before he gets even better. He is one of the up and comers that I have been keeping an eye on. I really respect his style, he fights with a lot of heart and he&#8217;s a striker, shooter. It kind of made sense. I don&#8217;t think he&#8217;s a walk in the park, that&#8217;s for sure. I mean, no one is nowadays. Everybody in the 155-pound division from one to 20 is a tough dude and can have a good night on any night. I think it&#8217;s definitely a challenge. Again, I&#8217;m not getting any younger and I just want to get out there and get some fights.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>UFC lightweight Gilbert Melendez talked on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mmafighting.com\/2015\/6\/22\/8821961\/the-mma-hour-with-dan-henderson-gilbert-melendez-makwan-amirkhani?_ga=1.226113816.325909861.1413922928\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The MMA Hour<\/a> about his short notice fight with Al Iaquinta. He took the fight after Bobby Green was injured and says he should take out Iaquinta now before he gets even better.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Benavidez: Paige VanZant Is Our Perfect Alpha Female<\/strong><\/p>\n<div id=\"container1\" class=\"outer-container\"><!-- Start of Brightcove Player --><\/p>\n<div style=\"display: none;\"><\/div>\n<p><!-- By use of this code snippet, I agree to the Brightcove Publisher T and C  found at https:\/\/accounts.brightcove.com\/en\/terms-and-conditions\/.  --><\/p>\n<p><script src=\"http:\/\/admin.brightcove.com\/js\/BrightcoveExperiences.js\" type=\"text\/javascript\" language=\"JavaScript\"><\/script><object id=\"myExperience4316241471001\" class=\"BrightcoveExperience\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\"><param name=\"bgcolor\" value=\"#FFFFFF\" \/><param name=\"width\" value=\"560\" \/><param name=\"height\" value=\"315\" \/><param name=\"playerID\" value=\"4174782329001\" \/><param name=\"playerKey\" value=\"AQ~~,AAADV3-cjCE~,liy9q4yw9hqmtNPERf0MOvxn6JKOOxF3\" \/><param name=\"isVid\" value=\"true\" \/><param name=\"isUI\" value=\"true\" \/><param name=\"dynamicStreaming\" value=\"true\" \/><param name=\"@videoPlayer\" value=\"4316241471001\" \/><\/object> <!--  This script tag will cause the Brightcove Players defined above it to be created as soon as the line is read by the browser. If you wish to have the player instantiated only after the rest of the HTML is processed and the page load is complete, remove the line. --><script type=\"text\/javascript\">\/\/ <![CDATA[\nbrightcove.createExperiences();\n\/\/ ]]><\/script><\/p>\n<p><!-- End of Brightcove Player --><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;No, I would&#8217;ve taken it against anybody, as long as it wasn&#8217;t a five-rounder. I&#8217;m interested for 15 minutes, let&#8217;s do it. I think Al is a tough guy. He&#8217;s one of those guys that I feel like I might as well get now before he gets even better. He is one of the up [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2616,"featured_media":128323,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[2681],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v19.7 (Yoast SEO v19.14) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Melendez On Iaquinta -- &#039;Better fight him now, before he gets better&#039; | BJPenn.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"He took the fight after Bobby Green was injured and says he should take out Iaquinta now before he gets even better....FULL story on BJPENN.COM.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/ufcnews\/melendez-on-iaquinta-better-fight-him-now-before-he-gets-better\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Melendez On Iaquinta -- &#039;Better fight him now, before he gets better&#039; 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