When did BJ Penn's prime started and when did it ended?

He needed to retire in 2010, by that time, he already had a ton of mileage, it’s crazy seeing that his career almost spanned 20 years, in fight years that’s crazy long,
 
Penn was one of the earliest versions we had of quite a few similar arguments you hear today; like with Overeem, Cain, or Rockhold. It's their best, not their average. The point with praising Penn came from the absolute height of his ability when he was on. It surely didn't come from his consistency. Like those guys above, it was obvious as daylight what Penn was capable of, the problem was whether or not he was executing on it, thus the birth of "motivated Penn."

In fairness to the relative lows he had, they were either the best opponents (WW champs Hughes & GSP), close fights at the highest level (Pulver), or absolute freakshows (Young Machida at HW). Plus, he gets extra points from looking that way from the very beginning. That's why he's The Prodigy.

So, no, in terms of the p4p greats, he never was one with the most dominant record. So if you take a look at him as an average, he's not the best. But his max was fucking impressive, and it was clear from day one and lasted a decade
 
He started fighting in the UFC at the age of 22. Like every fighter ever, he started to look bad around 9-11 years after fighting elite competition. This is standard. So anywhere between 31-33 years of age is when his prime ended, which is anywhere between 2010-2012.

And since this thread is vaguely about Khabib; Khabib retired after 8 years of fighting elite competition, which is a smart time to retire if you plan to stay undefeated.
 
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He lost to Frankie twice, the first fight was close but most people thought he won, the second fight he got crushed. He was in his prime, but he just didn't match up well with Edgar, who was too fast and his combination of speed, solid boxing, wrestling, movement, and cardio was something Penn didn't deal with well. Went back to WW and dispatched of an old Hughes easily. Had a draw with Jon Fitch who had only lost once in the last 9 years, only to GSP of all people, great performance. Lost to Nick Diaz but actually took a round off of him, Diaz is another bad matchup, iron chined boxer who never stops moving forward. Then he loses to Rory, who he never had a shot against, Rory was hitting his prime and was a massive WW, probably around 200lbs and extremely well rounded. He was probably in or around his prime for those fights. The move to FW probably fucked his body up pretty bad, by the time he went back to LW it was too late
 
Out of his prime after 2nd loss to Frankie. Should have retired for good after MacDonald.
 
Lol, quoting his record off Wikipedia on Sherdog!?! Savage. I like it. =D

Prime BJ last from 2007-10. Before then, he was too undisciplined to stick with a weight-class or gameplan. Afterwards, it seems like he was getting figured out pretty easily by his opponents. Prime is about more than physicality; a fight needs to be in his mental prime as well.
 
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