Who has the better legacy at Welterweight, BJ Penn or Pat Miletich?

Who has the better legacy at Welterweight, BJ Penn or Pat Militech?

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Steve-French

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BJ fought the better competition and is only 3-4-1 WW, but also won the UFC WW tittle. Miletich was able to have a better title reign and better record at that weight class, but fought the lesser competition. They are from slightly different eras, but did overlap when BJ was debuting as a LW.
 
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I would have to say Miletich. Even though he didn't face the killers BJ did he was still really successful and also headed a very dominant fight camp and pioneered a style with the Militech Fighting Systems.
 
Miletich by being an actual welterweight and not one that vacationed up there when he felt like it.
 
Penn came in and beat arguably the best WW ever Matt Hughes
 
I'm gonna give it the guy who won. Losing to better fighters shouldn't count more than being a dominant champ.
 
Penn via beating Hughes 2x and being champ is greater than any Pat has done.

Sorry Pat.

Penn is also undefeated at MW 2-0
 
007 said:
Penn came in and beat arguably the best WW ever Matt Hughes
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So did Dennis Hallman, twice He just did not have the good luck to get the fight when Matt was Champ.

Honestly people who vote for BJ here have to be borderline retarded. BJ has a horrendous record in his fights above LW except for one fight, the first Hughes win.

One single fight does not a division record make and every thing else BJ did above LW is meaningless of bad.

This would be liking asking if GSP has a better MW legacy than Frankin.
 
MikeMcMann said:
So did Dennis Hallman, twice He just did not have the good luck to get the fight when Matt was Champ.

Honestly people who vote for BJ here have to be borderline retarded. BJ has a horrendous record in his fights above LW except for one fight, the first Hughes win.

One single fight does not a division record make and every thing else BJ did above LW is meaningless of bad.

This would be liking asking if GSP has a better MW legacy than Frankin.
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Penn was also 2-0 at MW and shouldve beat Lyoto at HW.
 
Piece of Sheet said:
During a weak era.
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The question isn't who would win, it's who had the better legacy. I'd pick BJ over Pat if they fought, but he's not getting my vote based on a sub .500 record. His wins over Hughes are an amazing accomplishment though.
 
Liquid Smoke said:
I'm gonna give it the guy who won. Losing to better fighters shouldn't count more than being a dominant champ.
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This is one thing I cannot stand that always comes up in BJ talk. This noting that he should get credit for how good the guys he lost to was.

This is one thing I can 100% guarantee and that is that I too, could lose to all the same people BJ did. I just don't know how that makes great.
 
MikeMcMann said:
This is one thing I cannot stand that always comes up in BJ talk. This noting that he should get credit for how good the guys he lost to was.

This is one thing I can 100% guarantee and that is that I too, could lose to all the same people BJ did. I just don't know how that makes great.
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To be fair, I'd lose to the guys BJ lost to, but I wouldn't beat Matt Hughes. That's a huge signature win but IMO he gets a little too much mileage out of it. Kind of like Pulver's win over BJ.
 
Miletich

Hell BJ is a bigger fluke WW champ then Bisping was at MW and Mike defended his belt.
 
I just looked at Pat's record and I don't think it's fair to call him a dominant champ. He lost 3 times while holding the belt in other organizations before losing the belt to Carlos Newton. If he really dominated his era I'd give him the nod, but you really have to put an asterisk next to his title reign.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Miletich#Mixed_martial_arts_record

I still think overall BJ's run at WW gets him a little too much credit though, given his overall record.
 
Silly question. Who cares what some fighter's legacy was in a particular weight class if he didn't fight often at that weight and really didn't belong in that weight class at all?

It's like asking to compare the legacies of Conor McGregor as a boxer and James Toney in MMA. The obvious answer is that neither of them left a legacy in either sport.

BJ fought more often at WW than Conor has boxed, of course, but BJ was never a natural WW. He was always the smaller man going up a weight class to scrap with the best of the slightly bigger fighters just to show he could do it.

BJ's legacy in MMA is not tied to any weight class. Nor can it be. The prodigy's reputation in the sport was tied to his willingness to go after challenges other mixed marital artists were afraid to do. Why else would a bloated Penn, who was a natural 145-pound fighter, take on Lyoto Machida who would've outweighed him in normal circumstances by forty pounds?
 
So now it's Pats fault that he was disciplined to eat right and finish something he started? Sherdog is laugable
 
Lionel Mandrake said:
I would have to say Miletich. Even though he didn't face the killers BJ did he was still really successful and also headed a very dominant fight camp and pioneered a style with the Militech Fighting Systems.
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I'd say BJ in that everyone clicking on this thread is going over to Wiki to find out who Miletich actually fought.
 
As for Pat Miletich, he was a great fighter for the time, but somewhat boring. He got by on toughness, endurance, and by being a smart fighter. His competition was also marginal.

I loved watching Miletech fight guys like Chris Brennan, Townsend Saunders, Mikey Burnett, and John Alessio, but I'm not sure any of those guys could compete in the UFC today.

Saunders was a great wrestler, but (like many great wrestlers who try MMA) didn't like to get hit. He only fought two times, lost both fights, and left the sport.

Brennan was ahead of his time in mastering jujitsu, but he was smaller than Miletech (who also mastered jujitsu) and didn't have enough of a grappling or athletic advantage over Pat to compensate for being the smaller man.

Mikey Burnett was a tough Lion's den fighter who gave Pat all he could handle, but Mikey was never that much into fighting professionally and he soon left the sport.

John Alessio went on to have a long career in the sport, but he was always a marginal talent and he looked completely overmatched when up against Miletech.
 
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