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BJ Penn is an all time great. Why??

Frankie is half of BJ's size and took his belt and his soul.
 
OlderMan said:
IMO...LEGEND???

only by those who are fashionable... couple good wins...But Legend? Not even Great.
Purely a marketing made fighter...hype followed a Lot because of bjj blackbelt win in Brazil.. Gave him a mystique ..Media Ran with it. Good Fighter when he was good...No biggie. Lousy Person.
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<PlusJuan>
 
He had probably the best overall skill set in mma history during his prime. World class bjj both on top and from his back, goat level tdd, very good boxing with power in both hands, and even for a few fights a solid gas tank.
 
ConditFan said:
He's a former champ who fought up in weight more than he should of. (And still won a higher championship)
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How many 170 lb fighters were in the UFC when BJ became the champion?

I know that there were exactly 4 WW (170 was called LW back then) in the UFC when Pat Miletich became champ.
 
There are too many autistic fans who only care about "records" and not the actual fights.
 
From his robbery draw with Uno up until his loss to Frankie he was probably the best LW in the world

He didn't fight there much, but whenever he did he beat the guy people thought was the best

Finished Gomi. Finished Pulver in the rematch. Finished Sherk who was the other "uncrowned LW champ". Defended it a couple times. And the Matt Hughes win is a big deal any way you look at it

He's certainly taken a big ol'shit on his career but he is still very accomplished
 
Cylence said:
"The fight game starts hard and ends harder. This is an almost universal truth. Five years after he realized he might be done, Penn should know for sure now.

His legacy won’t be left in numbers. These final losses made sure of that. If you need to analyze his record, you didn't see him at his best. And if you saw him at his best, you wouldn't need to analyze his record.

Penn was great. Penn was game. And to the end, Penn refused to stop taking on challenges that appeared unconquerable because...because just scrap. That’s why."

A guy by the name of Mike Chiappetta wrote that after the Yair fight, it's part of one of my favorite articles.

I can't tell you why others consider Penn an all time great, but I'll tell you why he's an all time great to me.

I've been a combat sports fan for a while now. When I was a kid, my Dad told me about Riddick Bowe tossing his belt in the trash to avoid fighting Lennox. In my lifetime, I've seen Chuck/Wand happen years after it originally should have. I saw Mayweather and Pacquiao dance around eachother and play the blame game for literally half a decade. I saw Canelo hold out on fighting GGG until he started to slip a bit. I saw GSP not want anything to do with fighting Anderson even when presented with the offer of a catchweight fight. I saw Anderson want nothing to do with the idea of a Jones fight during the time that was on the table. We just saw a heavyweight superfight go up in flames in Joshua/Wilder because of shenanigans. Roy Jones and Tiger never happened because of this, that, or the other. DJ didn't want to fight TJ. Rhonda and Cyborg would constantly get at eachother throats, but a deal could never be reached. I'm forgetting a bunch, I'm sure.

Penn, for all his flaws, never once held up a big fight. He wanted to fight the best fighters available, regardless of anything else. He didn't care about weight classes, where the fight was held, how much he was going to be paid, or how a potential loss would effect his legacy or earning potential.

When Penn got offered the GSP II fight, I guarantee he didn't think about anything except that he wanted the fight. He got the fight. And ten years later, a lot of people still refer to it as the biggest fight in UFC history.

GSP had the opportunity to do the same thing with Anderson, but instead of signing on the dotted line, he weighed the pros and cons, and decided it was a bad choice. Now maybe he was right and maybe he was wrong, but regardless, we never got the fight. And we, the fans, wanted the fight.

BJ gave the fans what they wanted to see, and that's what his fans remember about him. So, when you see someone say "oh well BJ fought outside of his weight class" it isn't an excuse, it's the truth. You don't see fighters that are stars (and trust me, Penn was a star) take the legacy altering risks that he took.
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Great post. Very honest and heartfelt. I'm not a Penn fan and what he did weightclass wise, but it's cool to see someone show genuine appreciation for a fighter without feeling the need to bash another
 
Yay, booze , weed, moco loco ,burritos , jumping out of pools , street fights ,being born rich, yes men around u , training sporadically , being real flexible , having iron chin ( till fat camo shorts guy busted it ), having hot ex wife ...these are the keys to a good successful GOAT career.
 
You had to be there but I'm not going to go out of my way to defend Penn beyond that.
 
I mean you have to be seriously blind to not see how washed up Penn is/has been compared to his prime days.

lol @ bringing up his recent losing record as if it means anything.

Also IMO he edged out Frankie in their first fight.
 
Dbreiden83080 said:
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.
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some fighters just don't know when to quit they keep fighting longer then they should and end up with shit records kinda like RJJ in boxing. He must have really pissed Dana off some where down the line to let him take the abuse he is Dana pretty much forced Liddell to retire and damn near did the same to Baroni during his first UFC stint. Some fighters just falloff hard and in Penn case alot of that had to due with shit outside of the sport. He was a champion in two different weightclasses in a major org back when it wasn't so common pretty much just him, Randy, and Hendo for how long?
 
Kona Bear said:
I doubt Penn would’ve hesitated to fight Anderson, LW or not.

That’s more than I could say for GSP.
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So what? GSP is not under any obligation to follow bj Penn's foolish example
 
It doesnt matter what his record ends up as. He was one of the most skilled fighters to ever compete in Mixed martial arts,and had a decade run where he was mostly at the top levels of the sport. That period is what makes him an all time great.
 
CRuck1980 said:
That's why gsp retired having defeated every man he faced and bj Penn is currently trying to restart bum fights
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GSP won the GREAT GAME. Most fighters will never pull that off.
 
Because he was the best one point in time and fighters decline over time.
 
Kona Bear said:
GSP is not respectable or the slightest bit of a Warrior in that sense, IMO.

Whatever though.
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Complete rubbish.

GSP is an MMA GOD.
 
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