B.J. Penn vs. Kenny Florian official for UFC 101 in Philly

The highly anticipated UFC lightweight championship between the belt holder B.J. Penn and Kenny Florian is all set for UFC 101. The UFC has just made the bout official on their website.

UFC 101 is scheduled to take place in Philadelphia from the Wachovia Center on August 8 and will be co-headlined by a previously announced light heavyweight match up between former UFC light heavyweight champion Forrest Griffin and current UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva.

The bout with Florian will mark the second title defense of Penn’s current reign as lightweight champion. The Hilo native earned the title by choking out Joe Stevenson in a blood soaked affair at UFC 80. The 155 pound champion followed that victory up with an impressive TKO stoppage over Sean Sherk at UFC 84. Since the dominant performance over Sherk in May of 2008, Penn moved up to welterweight in an unsuccessful attempt to avenge a previous loss to UFC welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre.

Florian has earned his shot at the title the old fashioned way, through hard work and a series of beatdowns. After coming up short in his first bid for gold against Sean Sherk in October of 2006, “Ken Flo” has been carving a path of destruction through the lightweight ranks. He has won his last six straight bouts with wins over the likes of Joe Lauzon, Roger Huerta and Joe Stevenson in the mix.

Below is a full list of bouts expected for UFC 101:

B.J. Penn vs. Kenny Florian

Anderson Silva vs. Forrest Griffin

Amir Sadollah vs. Johny Hendricks

Kendall Grove vs. Ricardo Almeida

Thales Leites vs. Alessio Sakara

Tamdan McCrory vs. John Howard

Jesse Lennox vs. Danillo Villefort

Matt Riddle vs. Dan Cramer

George Sotiropoulos vs. Robert Emerson

Josh Neer vs. Kurt Pellegrino