BJ Penn is an all time great. Why??

[Levi_]

Because despite letting that fat redneck knock him out, he came back later that night and won via GnP. To be able to come back like that late in your fight career, really something special.

 

[JustBleed69]

The man will retire with a .500 record. Who the fuck is an all-time great that retires with a record like that? At 30 years old Frankie beat him down. Quite frankly embarrassed him. This dude is literally the most overrated fighter in the history of the sport. Honestly that shit isn’t even close.

Anybody who is a two division champion is an All-Time Great. Not only that, but he's also got a few title defenses and wins over some other All-Time Greats.

Now I would argue that is overrated in some capacity. He would not compete with the current LW top 5 in his prime imo.

 

[Rod Farva]

Disregard his record. He has hung around longer than he should have. The people around him who care about him should have told him to hang it up.

He won a title in two different weight classes.
He won the mundials.

When he was good, he was great.

He has some great highlights and lots of lowlights. Despite his accomplishments ones can’t help but feel he underachieved

 

[Benoitthegr8]

newer MMA fans will never understand or appreciate the “Pride/UFC” era fighters, there’s so much more than a wiki page or W-L can tell you about a fighters story. Not particularly a BJ fan, but what he was able to accomplish in the cage up until the Frankie fights is worth top notch appreciation and recognition.

 

[VulcanNervPinch]

2007 join date +

The man will retire with a .500 record. Who the fuck is an all-time great that retires with a record like that? At 30 years old Frankie beat him down. Quite frankly embarrassed him. This dude is literally the most overrated fighter in the history of the sport. Honestly that shit isn’t even close.

=

 

[Levi_]

He has some great highlights and lots of lowlights. Despite his accomplishments ones can’t help but feel he underachieved

Lack of motivation.

 

[IvanDrago2.0]

Penn is considered a “legend” by delusional fan boys.. yea he had a good little run when a decade ago or so but that was about it . Can’t forget the “in shape penn would’ve won” folk stories lol

 

[this is my new account]

BJ is garbage. He was good while a young man. Terrible work ethic. Not a legend IMO. Max is the best hawian fighter by a mile

 

[dildos]

The man will retire with a .500 record. Who the fuck is an all-time great that retires with a record like that? At 30 years old Frankie beat him down. Quite frankly embarrassed him. This dude is literally the most overrated fighter in the history of the sport. Honestly that shit isn’t even close.

educate yourself after the first few posts and then come back and reevaluate your life buds.

 

[icffedor]

So you don’t count one of his wins over Hughes bc it wasn’t his prime but you count all of bjs losses after his prime? Makes sense. Gsp and Hughes are not in his weight class but in my opinion he beat them both. How about the 5 years he spent as the top guy in his own weight class? He took out Sherk and gomi, those were the only two guys who could even be mentioned as the second best during that era. Frankie and B.J. were close fights, not beat downs and obviously by the way bjs career took a dive after, during his decline.

Penn lit Hughes up in the trilogy bout

 

[The Hash Slinging Slasher]

Legend: yes
All time great: not a chance

 

[Intellidamus]

That is why he’s overrated as hell. People want to make excuses for all of the losses.

It’s what we do on sherdog. If you support a fighter that starts losing his ass in every fight then you make excuses. Insert age or past prime, etc. But if a fighter you dislike loses under the same circumstances it proves he was never any good to begin with. Sherdog 101. You obviously never took the course.

 

[dildos]

Disregard his record. He has hung around longer than he should have. The people around him who care about him should have told him to hang it up.

He won a title in two different weight classes.
He won the mundials.

When he was good, he was great.

He has some great highlights and lots of lowlights. Despite his accomplishments ones can’t help but feel he underachieved

lowlights always makes me think of this overeem vid where he gets knocked out by everyone.

bj hasnt hit that level yet, but i know what you mean by lowlight.

plz forget the editing and the song. i didnt make it obvs.

 

[icffedor]

BJ Penn put on a good fight with the bigger stronger Fitch then fought Nick Diaz next. Nobody wants to fight Diaz bros but there Bj was fighting out of his weight. He paid too and Nick destroyed him and he never looked the same

 

[Lateralus]

BJ was a good fighter, some good wins and when he moved up and beat Hughes it was a massive accomplishment.
Penn never had the motivation though to reach his full potential, it's a shame really.
He could sneak into the top 10 GOAT discussion but certainly not top 5.

 

[glavinator]

The man will retire with a .500 record. Who the fuck is an all-time great that retires with a record like that? At 30 years old Frankie beat him down. Quite frankly embarrassed him. This dude is literally the most overrated fighter in the history of the sport. Honestly that shit isn’t even close.

Just cause he went off the rails and shit the bed the last number of years doesnt negate his past accomplishments. Use the search function, all sorts of threads detailing what he did that made him an all time great. And I'm not a BJ fan at all really

 

[TheRassler]

Records are not everything.

True.

Strip all fighters of their decision wins/losses and you'll have their real record.

BJ Penn's real record is 13-5, and 3 out of 5 of those losses came at the tail end of his career.

 

[Oldman1]

He didn't use PEDs so he peaked at a normal age for a sportsman.

 

[randomg1t]

if you have to ask why penn is an all time great, then you're a noob who has no clue what he's talking about.

a natural featherweight moving up all the way to heavyweight, not to mention fighting 10 years past your prime has a bad record? you don't say.

he was a great fighter because he had prodigious jiu jitsu skills, but instead of twisting people into knots on the mat, he came into the big leagues and started knocking everyone out. imagine demian maia coming out of nowhere and running through his division with a string of knockouts. penn was great because he was the second man in history to win world titles in 2 different weight classes. he was great because he ended hughes' reign, when hughes looked unstoppable. he was always chasing the biggest fight available to him, and he never backed out of a fight.

a mediocre record is not a sign of a mediocre career.

 

[IGotAHugePeckah]

Gee, I dunno. Two division world champ... that do anything for you?