Mike Chiappetta • E-mail

Everyone who loves sports has a fight, a match, a game that holds a special place in their memory banks for its competitiveness.

One that still wafts its way to my frontal lobe every now and then is the 1988 playoff shootout between Larry Bird and Dominique Wilkins. Certainly it has nothing to do with MMA, except that at its core, it was a desperate struggle between two men who were more like fighters than players that day. The other players on the court might as well have taken their courtside seats and bought popcorn in the fourth quarter as Bird and Wilkins went at each other’s throats with an NBA Finals berth on the line. Wilkins scored 47 points, including 15 in the fourth quarter, but Bird fired the last bullets, scoring 20 in the final quarter.

It is the type of memory that makes you a sports fan for life, and is specifically memorable because it happened on a big stage with something tangible at stake.

The stage is set for that type of MMA moment on Jan. 31.

When Georges St. Pierre and B.J. Penn square off in the main event of UFC 94, it will be -- for lack of a better descriptor -- one of the most perfect matchups the sport has ever produced, a clash between two of the sports’ all-time greats with the right ingredients to transcend the fight venue and enter the canon of great moments in athletics.

Hyperbole? Surely I am no Nostradamus, but while it is extremely difficult to predict the greatness of a future moment, here are the relevant ingredients of this fight stew:

The players: UFC lightweight champion Penn vs. UFC welterweight champion St. Pierre

The plotline: Two of the best pound-for-pound fighters ever face off in the prime of their careers

The history: The two have faced off once before, with St. Pierre winning a controversial split-decision in a three-round fight

The stakes: Multiple. First there is St. Pierre’s title. Second, there is Penn’s revenge factor. Finally, the winner gets the upper hand on a legacy of greatness.

St. Pierre and Penn, while both popular, may not individually have the overwhelming mainstream cachet to make this a mega-event. But UFC President Dana White predicts the biggest pay-per-view buyrate ever, suggesting that together, they have raised the event to must-see status. Regardless of how many tune in, it has all the potential of an instant classic.

The result of their first bout still causes arguments in the MMA community, and both fighters believe they were the rightful victors. But in a weird way, Penn's loss turned out to be of major benefit to him, and to the MMA world. Because he was born so brilliantly talented, Penn had always sailed by on his natural ability, never truly adopting a work ethic that would complement his stunning gifts. Losing to St. Pierre and later Matt Hughes, brought Penn to the cusp of his 28th birthday. Years earlier, when he had been a 22-year-old wrecking machine nicknamed "The Prodigy," he figured he would be the greatest pound-for-pound fighter in history by the time he was nearing 30. But instead, he was just another fighter on a two-bout losing streak.

TALE OF THE TAPE ST. PIERRE PENN Height 5-10 5-9 Weight 170 170 Age 27 30 Record 17-2 13-4-1 Title Fights 4-2 3-2-1 Last loss April 2007 Sept. 2006 Current rank* 4 3 *NBCSports.com pound-for-pound list

Make no mistake about it: even on the downswing, Penn was still considered among the best, but he was troubled that he lost to men he was clearly capable of beating. And against both, he had simply run out of gas. There was no excuse for it.

Penn retreated to his homeland of Hilo, Hawaii and pledged a change. If conditioning had been his undoing, he would retool it. If diet played a role in the issue, that would change, too. The laid-back fighter became obsessed with his place in history. He needed to win big fights and titles. Anyone with a belt or ranked in the top 10 were in his crosshairs. And because of that, the collision course with St. Pierre was always inevitable.

St. Pierre is just as physically gifted as Penn, a multi-talented phenom who seemingly adapts techniques into his repertoire as quickly as he sees them. However, unlike Penn, St. Pierre has always been touted as a tireless worker, always understanding that repetition would bring about the seamlessness in the skills necessary to dominate MMA at its highest level.