Who had a better career in MMA?.. Matt Hughes or BJ Penn?

Hughes no question, 3 times as many wins with less losses. And IMO he had the better resume of fighters beat. 2 time WW champ with 7 defenses, beat 6 former/current UFC champs. While BJ had some great accomplishments, I still favor Hughes here.
 
Hans Gercmiov said:
BJ.

Hughes does have a win over GSP, which is huge. But you could make the argument (a good argument) that BJ won his first fight with GSP. And he has 2 wins over Hughes, plus he's a 2 division champ.
Click to expand...

It's been a while since I've seen BJ-GSP 1, but I must've seen it about 10 times from 06-08. I really thought it was a clear GSP win. The horrible split decision reminds me of Henderson beating Arona on one judge's card.


As for the thread, I guess I give a very slight edge to Hughes.
 
Gonna go with Hughes, Penn had better foot notes, such as being a 2 division champ.

But Hughes was more dominate and was the flagship of Welterweight for a very long time, had a lot of longevity, having a stunning 25 UFC fights, where as Penn had 28 fights total.

Hughes won the WW belt twice, with 8 defenses. Penn won 2 belts but had only 3 defenses.

Hughes finished his career with a respectable 3-2 in his last 5 fights, where as Penn was 1-3-1, if you extend that to last 10 fights - Hughes was 5-5, Penn was 3-5-2
 
Both are legends but I'm going to say Matt Hughes he is the 2nd greatest Welterweight of all time.
Matt has a win over Georges St Pierre and B.J Penn which is pretty huge. Hughes has defeated five former UFC Champions.
 
Both had great careers

Matt was more consistent throughout.
 
Hughes imo. More dominant, has better victories, more memorable fights.
 
Hughes more "consistent." BJ far more exciting and varied. Really chased after challenges while Hughes was content to hang at 170 as king of the hill.

Here's what the question/poll should be. If only one of the two could come back in top form for one fight, who would you rather see?

For me it's no question. BJ "I'll lick your blood off my gloves" Penn
 
BJ Penn was destroyed by Frankie Edgar so if you talk about a great career, talk about Frankie Edgar.
 
I'll go with Penn. Hughes had more wins and was more consistent. But Penn won titles in 2 separate divisions. He also would fight anyone. And was one of the bravest fighters ever. Never ducking competition and fighting a lot of guys bigger and stronger than him.
 
BJ was the superior fighter. He also had a large amount of talent that he sometimes didn't seem to put to its full use.

Hughes, imo, rose to his potential. He was dethroned and surpassed, but he had his day at the top. He clearly wasn't on a GSP (even pre-rematch) or BJ level. BJ losing to Hughes was one of the times BJ was criticized for putting on subpar performances.

Depends on what you consider success or a good career.
 
This is a tough one. Jeez. There could be an arugment on either side and I wouldn't say either would be wrong. Flip a coin.
 
BJ based on BJ being the champ in two divisions and beating Hughes twice who had a clear size advantage. Hughes beating GSP? Why would you even mention that? It's as "big" as Luciano Azevedo beating Jose Aldo in 2005 (I of course had to check Fight Finder). The GSP that Hughes beat wasn't the GSP that he was going to be - he was still evolving and had yet to become the WW GOAT.

It is also evident that BJ is the better fighter between the two though Hughes by far was the more professional one. If we're strictly talking about who's the better fighter, no one could state Hughes. When we're talknig about career, then a case can be made that BJ messed up his career by being lazy at times and looking like crap in his last couple of fights. However, what BJ did in his career is far, far more impressive than what Hughes ever did so I can't quite see how anyone could pick Hughes unless it's because he was always "good" while BJ was both "shit" and "great".
 
BJ winning belts in two divisions was awesome, but Matt's win-loss ratio was vastly superior and he had more title defenses.

I never liked him very much but I still have to go with Hughes on this one.
 
I think Hughes had the better MMA career... I think BJ lost too many of his biggest fights. Both men are absolute legends though.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Forum statistics

Threads
1,236,962
Messages
55,457,453
Members
174,787
Latest member
Freddie556

Share this page

Back
Top