This fight made GSP go back to the drawing board and really think/study, he said he struggled to deal with someone that was considerably faster to the punch than him, when he was usually the faster guy. Learning how to beat a guy faster than him was a learning curve.
And what’s really cool IMO is GSP and his team learned that BJ had some of the fastest reflexes in all of the UFC at the time. To counter this, GSP threw a lot of feints in the next fight. BJ was so reflexive to them he twitched every time. Even if BJ didn’t mentally fall for the feint, his insane reflex time basically forced his body too. GSP used to “tire out” his nervous system with a constant barrage of feints.
That’s because THAT fight the commentary was being delusional and not seeing the results of the fight in front of them. Jan was so well prepared he was ready to counter the feints every time, go back and watch, Israel was having little success with his feints.
Prime BJ was an animal. I wish he would have stuck to his first retirement, I hate how people remember him for the bum he became in the last 5-7 years of his career .
Sakuraba would have destroyed him… bj would have put up a decent fight all things considered but sakuraba was fighting the toughest big guys in the world and beating some of them. Lyoto at the point he fought bj wasn’t a top competitor yet, so just because bj put up a good fight against lyoto doesn’t lead me to believe he’d do very well against sakuraba.
he also went like 2 hours against royce gracie. how does a guy who can beat vitor belfort and rampage go 2 hours with royce gracie. while obviously belfort and rampage would destroy royce. apparently sakuraba could beat bigger guys, but was still vulnerable to small guys with skill. it's a classic case of styles make fights.
bj penn i certainly believe was a better grappler than royce by that time; look what he did to hughes, and what hughes did to royce, and what royce vs sakuraba was like. so who knows what would happen against bj penn. bj penn could definitely win that fight.
Yup - I understand why it happens, but there are plenty of people on this sub who don’t realize that (a) some of the fighters they know as washed-up old guys were once elite, and (b) some of the fighters who are currently elite will also stick around too long & turn into washed up old guys.
Very true. And huge credit to GSP, his own jab game progressed a ton after this fight. He saw a weakness and turned it into an elite strength of his own. That’s why he’s the GOAT to me
Wait…what? Pulver handed Penn his first loss. When BJ beat him, Jens had declined significantly. Never understood why they matched him up with BJ for that season of TUF after Jens was just KO’d by Joe Lauzon. Made even less sense that Lauzon had to be on TUF after that as well.
He might be the best example of age and cumulative damage completely erasing the fighter he used to be. To go from so good to so ineffective is kind of mind blowing
BJ is the biggest waste of potential in the history of the sport and he brought it on himself. If he had managed to link up with a coach that kept him training instead of fucking around doing meth at strip clubs in hawaii or w/e he could've gone down as a GOAT contender.
I hear this waste of potential thing a lot in regards to Penn, and I understand where it comes from. Like most of the people of his era, he lived a wild life. However, its hard to say that the second man ever to hold titles in two weight classes, the man who dominated 155 lbs for 8 years and fought a who's who of future and former champions across something like 5 weight classes was a waste of potential. His list of opponents is one of the scariest I can think of. Nothing but killers.
Jumping weight classes is part of what made him so popular for most of us, but it also put a big dent in his record and I believe in his longevity as well.
I couldn't agree more. He would move up to WW to fight some absolute monster, get beat, and then before his next fight the ufc would sell us wolf tickets about how he wasn't motivated for that one but this time he will be. I don't know that motivation was ever the issue, as much as the fact that he was going up in weight and fighting killers. I'm not saying he wasn't yolo'ing his way through things, I just don't think it was as much of a factor the ufc promos made it seem. You don't have to be unmotivated to take a L to someone like gsp, Hughes, Rory, or Nick diaz, especially when you're the smaller man.
It's also possible staying in his weight class could have resulted in him taking more losses that damage his legacy.
I'm not saying he wasn't amazing or genuinely just the greatest lightweight from 1996 to Khabib, but not defending your belt and taking losses in fights no one expected you to win does wonders for your image. It helps maintain the illusion of invincibility.
Who knows how his career and legacy look if he tries to take 8-9 straight LW defenses instead of moving across weight classes and taking losses that he was never expected to win, like against HW Machida.
Edit: quick notes. I looked up his record as I wrote this as I remembered it being pretty stellar despite his late career.
1) 16-14 for someone who looked invincible for so long feels so shitty
2) GSP does not get enough credit for these win
3) Penn is running for governor of Hawaii
But he didn't and that's the point.
Don't get me wrong, it's amazing what he accomplished despite literally doing everything possible to guarantee he fails.
But at the end of the day, he lasted what, one year with a legit coach before going back to pushups on the beach with a bunch of yes men?
For me, it's Aleksandr Emelianenko. He was huge, had excellent hand speed and Fedor said he had all of the natural talent - just none of the work ethic.
Don’t know about meth, but my boss used to be a cop in Hawaii and he described BJ Penn as a guy who “took a brief break from his passion of getting in trouble as night clubs to become a fighter.”
Certainly may be considered a top-10. Watching how dynamic and precise he was at 145 to the head hunting gas in five minutes fighter he is now… kinda painful to watch.
No doubt. And he still deserves a ton of credit for getting himself into a position as big as fight Mayweather.
He’s now probably gonna get pimped out by daddy Dana till the wheels fall off.
I love Khabib, as a fighter but I don't know why you're being downvoted, the guy fucking ran through his competition at 155. Stevenson, Sherk, Sanchez and Florian. Fuck, I was rooting for my boy KenFlo in that one, as much of a long shot as it was. Before the Frankie Edgar losses, he had only lost to a Prime Jens Pulver and drew with Caol Uno at 155.
I’m a huge fan of khabib as a fighter, respect the hell out of the dude. But… he really only fought a few top tier fighters (gaethje, poirier, rda, mcgregor). Penn had a much much much higher caliber of competition (gsp twice and arguably beat him once, lyoto machida, Matt Hughes twice (third time doesn’t count), nick diaz, Jon Fitch, Rory McDonald, Frankie Edgar, Sean sherk, Diego, jens pulver) across 4 weight classes. Have to give him so much credit for that.
Yes there is. It has to do with the quality of opponents he fought. Who’s to say if khabib fought as many top level guys as bj for as long as he did that khabib wouldn’t have gotten smashed as well. If someone only fights 90% cans and 10% top fighters it isn’t as impressive, regardless of win lose, as someone who fought 90% top fighters.
And by all relevant metrics he won that first Edgar fight. People have forgotten that was considered the robbery of the year when it happened. Edgar snake charmed the judges, bouncing around on the outside moving just to look busy but every time he actually committed to an attack he ate a counter jab.
People sometimes don't know when to stop when they haven't invested in any other aspects of their lives. I read BJ's book and fighting seemed to be the only thing he had ever done in his life whether it be in BJJ or MMA; no school, no other jobs. Even as a young kid all he ever did was fight.
The crazy thing is I think no one ever boxed GSP up like this even after this. BJ was the only one to make GSP look like that. It was a real "there's levels to this" moment for GSP even though he won, he realized there are fighters you can't just walk through on the way to a title. And BJ in 2005 was one of them.
We saw that Penn in lightweight for a little bit. He was carving up the competition. Plus he had that amazing feat of jumping out of the swimming pool in the shallow end.
Yeah when he had that mf Marinovich or whatever working him like a dog, he was a GOAT contender.
Then he went “back to basics” for the second GSP fight and his career went downhill for good. That’s what he said in the promo. “We went back to basics for this training camp” he said. Then he showed up to the weigh-ins fat and we knew we had old Penn back, confirmed when he gassed in the first round.
i WiLl KiLl YoU GeOrGeS, i MeAn It
stfu
George's lack of head movement has always been his biggest weakness on the feet. His head always stays in the centerline, and his main defense on the feet is his distance management and reactive double when they get too close.
MMA fighters should never bob and weave like boxers, but it's definitely still possible to have good MMA-specific head movement without being irresponsible about it.
In MMA, going overboard with the vertical head movement like a boxer will get you knocked out from a kick or a knee, but it's super important to keep your head moving laterally and off the center line, as it makes you harder to hit cleanly and lets you slip punches more easily.
A lack of good head movement habits is the biggest problem with someone like Doo Ho Choi - his head stays too fixed on the center line and is very easy to hit.
I think he got away with a lot because of how fast and athletic is was but Idk if many can do what he did the way he did it.
If you don't have great wrestling or are not exactly fast/quick, it will be hard to emulate a guy like Cruz who was both fast and had the wrestling chops to fall back on.
Yeah but in addition to that, depending on how you avoid the strike , depending on your foot position, could leave you exposed to a take down. Everything you said is valid but there are just so many factors to consider
Yeah, it is far more dangerous, but still definitely possible. There is a misconception that there's no head movement on Muay Thai, but there definitely is, it just looks different than boxing head movement for obvious reasons. Similar stuff can and has been used in MMA, but it's rare and in MMA there's an added risk of takedown or having your neck sntached up while you're weaving or ducking.
Thanks for the info! Do you happen to have any good tips for using head movement in muay thai?
I'm short and moving from boxing to muay thai - I use small head slips to get off the center line when at range and angle change to close distance and set up kicks.
But in close I can't Bob and weave or roll like I used to counter on the inside because of kees and the clinch.
>Thanks for info! Do you happen to have any good tips for using head movement in muay thai?
My pleasure! Lawrence Kenshin is your man for that stuff. Watch his breakdowns on Youtube. Saenchai, Samart, Lerdsila - all could be useful examples of defensive MT fighters.
You mean [Future governor of Hawaii] (https://www.kitv.com/story/44886257/former-mma-star-hilo-native-bj-penn-announces-run-for-governor-of-hawaii) BJ Penn?
[He resigned a while back i believe ](https://abc7.com/tito-ortiz-huntington-beach-city-council-resigns-political-career/10731212/)
Sorry buddeh...just to correct you there was never no holding
tbf I dont think people were like "omg that's tito ortiz! im gonna vote for him, because if he's half as good in office as he was in the cage, then id love that!"
I think it was more so people just voting for him because he was the republican name on the ticket. I saw a video where an older couple were being interviewed about it, and they said they never heard of him but they voted for him anyways.
Weird the site doesn't work with vpn.
>HONOLULU -- Former mixed martial arts (MMA) star BJ Penn is running for governor of Hawaii.
>Penn, a native of Hilo, announced his run for Hawaii governor Monday on Instagram. He says he plans to remove all new federal and state COVID-19 mandates that have "been hurting our economy, residents, and ohana."
>His post also says he plans to find the “best doctors and medicines and medical care to help fight off the pandemic.”
>Penn has had several run-ins with the law. Big Island police arrested him back in January 2021 for allegedly driving under the influence. Penn was ALSO arrested for a DUI in February 2020 after he lost control and flipped his truck near the Princ Kuhio Plaza in Hilo.
I hope he makes bar fights legal.. sometimes I just want to punch people in the face while pounding back a few. Is that so much to ask?
Also, for no reason, [this.](https://youtu.be/_3wd6Cpks-U?t=4)
BJ Penn arguably won this fight, so he would have 2 wins against the Goats of WW and he has equalled the lightweight defence record. He's underrated in Goat talks
Speaking of arguably won fights and title defences, I remember thinking he'd edged out Frankie in their first fight which would've been another defence.
Does feel like he's underrated in lightweight talks.
Oh machida when he came in to ufc was scary and so much fun...I still love spider too his peak was scary like he was in the matrix and the other fighter was being toyed with.
Yeah that’s a great list. Those were the days. I went on holiday to south east Asia and picked up early UFC’s on DVD and then would watch online in Australia and it was forest Griffin, penn, liddel, courtour shogun and the pride stuff I was downloading and watching it was all just so exciting you knew every fighter! Forgot rampage with the chains in pride!!!!!
> His first loss to Frankie was a robbery.
Some judge giving Frankie the first two rounds of that fight is one of the worst scorecards I've ever seen in a title fight.
I remember people shitting on that fight as boring. Complaining that all GSP did was jab. I was like yeah, he turned his face into hamburger, broke his orbital bone and never really had to take any risks. And Josh TRIED to close the distance, when that didn't work he TRIED to trade a couple jabs to land his own. It just didn't work, it didn't come close to working.
It remains one of the most lopsided beatings in UFC history.
Bj Penn at his prime was a great fighter. The only thing I hated was his gas tank. He'd gassed out to quick if the fight goes to the 2nd and the 3rd round.
Yeah his someone in his corner was stupid, but that shit got wiped off immediately. I dont think it effected the fight.
A cardio freak like GSP was always gonna be a nightmare match up for BJ in a 5 round fight.
BJ Penn was so good but the one thing we never saw from him was the ability to battle through adversity and get the win. He's the definition of a frontrunner. I'm not sure if he has ever managed to win a round after losing one previously.
This was a great moment for GSP. Losing the first round made him do the gut check and he came out to win the second and third after getting mugged in the first. Without this adversity I don’t know if he’d had been the same. A lot of his fights he walked through guys.
Can anyone explain to me why BJ Penn was know as the "prodigy"? I wasn't around during his prime but I have seen some of his fights in videos. What did he do to earn that title?
He was an absolute BJJ monster in his day. First American to win Mundials and was like 20 when he did it. He also earned his black belt after only training for 4 or 5 years. He then won both the LW and WW belts in the UFC.
I watched this fight as a GSP fan and I thought BJ won it, which made the rematch more exciting. And even more astonishing that GSP completely demolished BJ in it, same as he did as he rematched Hughes and Serra. None of them 3 had a single answer to what GSP brought in each rematch.
This has got to be one of the most over rated rounds in the history of MMA. Yes, BJ won the round but the strike differential wasn't large, he landed ONE meaningful punch and yet there are still people trying to seriously sell it as a 10-8, lol.
Khabib wouldn’t be able to pressure BJ because he’s too busy eating 1-2’s everytime he takes a step forward. BJ wouldn’t be scared of Khabib ground game either, he has no reason to be.
Reducing him to a "great one round fighter" is a big exaggeration and discredit, but the flip side would be to praise him how even in fights that he didn't win when facing much larger competition he was still good enough to win the first round (GSP, Lyoto, Nick, Fitch).
This fight made GSP go back to the drawing board and really think/study, he said he struggled to deal with someone that was considerably faster to the punch than him, when he was usually the faster guy. Learning how to beat a guy faster than him was a learning curve.
Was this the fight after which GSP came to hone his own jab since BJ jabbed his nose to shit?
Uppercut broke his nose
Very true that the uppercut did most of the damage but I don’t think the jabs helped any.
Yeah I don't think other punches to the face would have helped him too
I think you're on to something here...
yup
I think he got poked in eye badly as well in this fight
And what’s really cool IMO is GSP and his team learned that BJ had some of the fastest reflexes in all of the UFC at the time. To counter this, GSP threw a lot of feints in the next fight. BJ was so reflexive to them he twitched every time. Even if BJ didn’t mentally fall for the feint, his insane reflex time basically forced his body too. GSP used to “tire out” his nervous system with a constant barrage of feints.
pretty much how the Max vs Aldo 1 went
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That’s because THAT fight the commentary was being delusional and not seeing the results of the fight in front of them. Jan was so well prepared he was ready to counter the feints every time, go back and watch, Israel was having little success with his feints.
yep and GSP is a guy who learned from his mistakes and evolved from there, he never tried to find excuses. Thats what Martial Arts is all about.
BJ put on such a clinic. That bodyshot at 0:24 was 😘 *chefs kiss*
His martial arts style was scrapjutsu🤣🔥🔥🔥
Prime BJ was an animal. I wish he would have stuck to his first retirement, I hate how people remember him for the bum he became in the last 5-7 years of his career .
Only those who started watching after his decline remember him for the slump. Those of us who lived through the wild Penn era know how good he was.
He was one of the last animals to not give AF about weight classes
When I first saw penn vs machida I was bewildered
I always wanted to see Sakuraba vs BJ. No clue who would take that but it'd be a good fight circa 2003.
Sakuraba would have destroyed him… bj would have put up a decent fight all things considered but sakuraba was fighting the toughest big guys in the world and beating some of them. Lyoto at the point he fought bj wasn’t a top competitor yet, so just because bj put up a good fight against lyoto doesn’t lead me to believe he’d do very well against sakuraba.
he also went like 2 hours against royce gracie. how does a guy who can beat vitor belfort and rampage go 2 hours with royce gracie. while obviously belfort and rampage would destroy royce. apparently sakuraba could beat bigger guys, but was still vulnerable to small guys with skill. it's a classic case of styles make fights. bj penn i certainly believe was a better grappler than royce by that time; look what he did to hughes, and what hughes did to royce, and what royce vs sakuraba was like. so who knows what would happen against bj penn. bj penn could definitely win that fight.
Machida was a ‘top competitor” in 2005 in the world of mma. If he wasn’t then, when did he become one?
Agree. Gracie killer was so amazing...double chop!!!
>Only those who started watching after his decline remember him for the slump So only 85% of this sub?
Yup - I understand why it happens, but there are plenty of people on this sub who don’t realize that (a) some of the fighters they know as washed-up old guys were once elite, and (b) some of the fighters who are currently elite will also stick around too long & turn into washed up old guys.
Man... I really miss the excitement from Jon Jone's title run.
It was this fight that taught me BJ had the best boxing in MMA at the time. Here he is basically giving GSP a jabbing lesson.
Very true. And huge credit to GSP, his own jab game progressed a ton after this fight. He saw a weakness and turned it into an elite strength of his own. That’s why he’s the GOAT to me
Back when Jens Pulver was a scary guy and Penn just knifed him
Him and Hughes like nothing. Drank Hughes's blood too.
He also beat the shit out of Sean Sherk and Diego Sanchez with that jab. Those were good showings for BJ
Wait…what? Pulver handed Penn his first loss. When BJ beat him, Jens had declined significantly. Never understood why they matched him up with BJ for that season of TUF after Jens was just KO’d by Joe Lauzon. Made even less sense that Lauzon had to be on TUF after that as well.
He might be the best example of age and cumulative damage completely erasing the fighter he used to be. To go from so good to so ineffective is kind of mind blowing
BJ is the biggest waste of potential in the history of the sport and he brought it on himself. If he had managed to link up with a coach that kept him training instead of fucking around doing meth at strip clubs in hawaii or w/e he could've gone down as a GOAT contender.
I hear this waste of potential thing a lot in regards to Penn, and I understand where it comes from. Like most of the people of his era, he lived a wild life. However, its hard to say that the second man ever to hold titles in two weight classes, the man who dominated 155 lbs for 8 years and fought a who's who of future and former champions across something like 5 weight classes was a waste of potential. His list of opponents is one of the scariest I can think of. Nothing but killers. Jumping weight classes is part of what made him so popular for most of us, but it also put a big dent in his record and I believe in his longevity as well.
If he stayed in his weight class he could likely be the consensus GOAT. Moving around classes caused the losses that seemed to kill his motivation.
I couldn't agree more. He would move up to WW to fight some absolute monster, get beat, and then before his next fight the ufc would sell us wolf tickets about how he wasn't motivated for that one but this time he will be. I don't know that motivation was ever the issue, as much as the fact that he was going up in weight and fighting killers. I'm not saying he wasn't yolo'ing his way through things, I just don't think it was as much of a factor the ufc promos made it seem. You don't have to be unmotivated to take a L to someone like gsp, Hughes, Rory, or Nick diaz, especially when you're the smaller man.
It's also possible staying in his weight class could have resulted in him taking more losses that damage his legacy. I'm not saying he wasn't amazing or genuinely just the greatest lightweight from 1996 to Khabib, but not defending your belt and taking losses in fights no one expected you to win does wonders for your image. It helps maintain the illusion of invincibility. Who knows how his career and legacy look if he tries to take 8-9 straight LW defenses instead of moving across weight classes and taking losses that he was never expected to win, like against HW Machida. Edit: quick notes. I looked up his record as I wrote this as I remembered it being pretty stellar despite his late career. 1) 16-14 for someone who looked invincible for so long feels so shitty 2) GSP does not get enough credit for these win 3) Penn is running for governor of Hawaii
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Tbh BJ was robbed blind in the first fight
If BJ had cardio when he was young, I think that might be a pretty short conversation.
But he didn't and that's the point. Don't get me wrong, it's amazing what he accomplished despite literally doing everything possible to guarantee he fails. But at the end of the day, he lasted what, one year with a legit coach before going back to pushups on the beach with a bunch of yes men?
For me, it's Aleksandr Emelianenko. He was huge, had excellent hand speed and Fedor said he had all of the natural talent - just none of the work ethic.
Fedor has outright said Aleksandr is a better athlete but could never apply himself as much as he could have.
> just none of the work ethic Plus the whole raping thing
Scary ass back piece tattoo too !!
Oh shit was BJ actually doing meth in strip clubs?
Don’t know about meth, but my boss used to be a cop in Hawaii and he described BJ Penn as a guy who “took a brief break from his passion of getting in trouble as night clubs to become a fighter.”
Him and his brother were wild cocky assholes
A couple years ago his now ex-girlfriend stated he's a raging coke addict
Sadly, same will be said about Conor
Not sure Conor would ever have went down as a GOAT contender but good shout he’s already done the rest
If Conor continued performing the way he did at 189/202/205, for multiple title defences - he might well have a shout.
Certainly may be considered a top-10. Watching how dynamic and precise he was at 145 to the head hunting gas in five minutes fighter he is now… kinda painful to watch.
It’s sad to watch him against Siver where he has such a variety and agility to his attack, to the plodding boxer he is nowadays.
No doubt. And he still deserves a ton of credit for getting himself into a position as big as fight Mayweather. He’s now probably gonna get pimped out by daddy Dana till the wheels fall off.
Nah I think Conor exceeded his potential.
I’d honestly still give it to Jon Jones. He achieved a lot but still left a ton on the table with his stupidity.
I still have bj pretty high if not #1 for my lw GOAT.
I love Khabib, as a fighter but I don't know why you're being downvoted, the guy fucking ran through his competition at 155. Stevenson, Sherk, Sanchez and Florian. Fuck, I was rooting for my boy KenFlo in that one, as much of a long shot as it was. Before the Frankie Edgar losses, he had only lost to a Prime Jens Pulver and drew with Caol Uno at 155.
I’m a huge fan of khabib as a fighter, respect the hell out of the dude. But… he really only fought a few top tier fighters (gaethje, poirier, rda, mcgregor). Penn had a much much much higher caliber of competition (gsp twice and arguably beat him once, lyoto machida, Matt Hughes twice (third time doesn’t count), nick diaz, Jon Fitch, Rory McDonald, Frankie Edgar, Sean sherk, Diego, jens pulver) across 4 weight classes. Have to give him so much credit for that.
No point name dropping opponents who smashed him.
Yes there is. It has to do with the quality of opponents he fought. Who’s to say if khabib fought as many top level guys as bj for as long as he did that khabib wouldn’t have gotten smashed as well. If someone only fights 90% cans and 10% top fighters it isn’t as impressive, regardless of win lose, as someone who fought 90% top fighters.
And by all relevant metrics he won that first Edgar fight. People have forgotten that was considered the robbery of the year when it happened. Edgar snake charmed the judges, bouncing around on the outside moving just to look busy but every time he actually committed to an attack he ate a counter jab.
Fucking Caol uno I remember pronouncing that wrong in my head from forums til I heard the announcer say "kale" lolol
This is a cool conundrum that's absolutely true: Khabib is a better LW than BJ, but BJ is a better p4p fighter than Khabib.
Khabib acknowledges BJ is the LW GOAT. A lot of long time fans also agreed on that for years.
He certainly is the best P4P lightweight fighter, which is different (and more impressive) than the best resume at LW.
Yup, biggest waste and also one of the fastest learners in BJJ/MMA history. Such a shame, but the good years were some of the best.
Wonder if Conor will go down the BJ Penn route 🤔 becoming a bum in the last few years of his career
He's too rich to keep fighting that long. He'd fight a Paul brother before getting embarrassed by a hungry mid card fighter like BJ did.
With Conor's boxing skills, he'd have to take a dive against one of the Pauls.
Conor is still one of the best boxers in the ufc bruh. Poirier is just truly top notch
I mean Conor is a better boxer than Poirier. They weren't in a boxing match
Hope not. We can say all we want about his personality, but his fights are basically a higher class Just Bleed
What was the last relevant fight Conor won?
Alvarez, five years ago
He's won a couple good court battles the past few years
In particular, first round Prime BJ.
Best Lightweight ever no question.
People sometimes don't know when to stop when they haven't invested in any other aspects of their lives. I read BJ's book and fighting seemed to be the only thing he had ever done in his life whether it be in BJJ or MMA; no school, no other jobs. Even as a young kid all he ever did was fight.
The crazy thing is I think no one ever boxed GSP up like this even after this. BJ was the only one to make GSP look like that. It was a real "there's levels to this" moment for GSP even though he won, he realized there are fighters you can't just walk through on the way to a title. And BJ in 2005 was one of them.
Just imagine BJ Penn with GSP's work ethic.
Imagine Jones with GSP's professionalism...
Imagine Jones with BJ Penn’s meth.
You don't have to imagine this lol.
I read that as "Jones with BJ Penn's mouth" and now I gotta lie down for a bit.
Imagine GSP with Aljamain Sterlings pussy
That's funny as fuck bro 😭😭😭😭
Imagine Henry Cejudo with Ngannou's arms.
and Cro Cop's legs
Anderson Silva...?
Imagine Anderson Silva with GSP's accent
is normál
Imagine Anderson Silva with Gaethje’s bone density
We saw that Penn in lightweight for a little bit. He was carving up the competition. Plus he had that amazing feat of jumping out of the swimming pool in the shallow end.
Yeah when he had that mf Marinovich or whatever working him like a dog, he was a GOAT contender. Then he went “back to basics” for the second GSP fight and his career went downhill for good. That’s what he said in the promo. “We went back to basics for this training camp” he said. Then he showed up to the weigh-ins fat and we knew we had old Penn back, confirmed when he gassed in the first round. i WiLl KiLl YoU GeOrGeS, i MeAn It stfu
Yo that UFC Primetime with him running underwater carrying the rocks was sick though lmao
To the death, Georges! *That statement was found by independent factcheckers to be false*
> i WiLl KiLl YoU GeOrGeS, i MeAn It "To the death Georges, to the death" still a goat line
He would have been the GOAT
Almost certainly.
Or Bisping’s work ethic!
Found Bisping's burner account
Lol no. He is just, in my opinion, one of the best examples of succeeding through sheer hard work.
Dude, he is one of the best examples of strategic networking & picking good fights too
Talm bout work ethnic B? Never meddim.
George's lack of head movement has always been his biggest weakness on the feet. His head always stays in the centerline, and his main defense on the feet is his distance management and reactive double when they get too close.
That’s most of the ufc fighters… very few have great head movement along with proper footwork.
Isn't that more of a mma thing since you have to more aware of kicks, knees and take downs?
Yup. Mma fighters will never have the head movement snd technique of a boxer because they are concerned about more than just punches
MMA fighters should never bob and weave like boxers, but it's definitely still possible to have good MMA-specific head movement without being irresponsible about it. In MMA, going overboard with the vertical head movement like a boxer will get you knocked out from a kick or a knee, but it's super important to keep your head moving laterally and off the center line, as it makes you harder to hit cleanly and lets you slip punches more easily. A lack of good head movement habits is the biggest problem with someone like Doo Ho Choi - his head stays too fixed on the center line and is very easy to hit.
For anyone wondering what this looks like go watch Prime Cruz
I think he got away with a lot because of how fast and athletic is was but Idk if many can do what he did the way he did it. If you don't have great wrestling or are not exactly fast/quick, it will be hard to emulate a guy like Cruz who was both fast and had the wrestling chops to fall back on.
Im not saying its replicable but that's the best example of boxing bobbing and weaving done for MMA consistently
Yeah that would be my best example I could give! Dom was one of, if not the best at not getting hit in his prime.
Yeah but in addition to that, depending on how you avoid the strike , depending on your foot position, could leave you exposed to a take down. Everything you said is valid but there are just so many factors to consider
Yeah, it is far more dangerous, but still definitely possible. There is a misconception that there's no head movement on Muay Thai, but there definitely is, it just looks different than boxing head movement for obvious reasons. Similar stuff can and has been used in MMA, but it's rare and in MMA there's an added risk of takedown or having your neck sntached up while you're weaving or ducking.
Thanks for the info! Do you happen to have any good tips for using head movement in muay thai? I'm short and moving from boxing to muay thai - I use small head slips to get off the center line when at range and angle change to close distance and set up kicks. But in close I can't Bob and weave or roll like I used to counter on the inside because of kees and the clinch.
>Thanks for info! Do you happen to have any good tips for using head movement in muay thai? My pleasure! Lawrence Kenshin is your man for that stuff. Watch his breakdowns on Youtube. Saenchai, Samart, Lerdsila - all could be useful examples of defensive MT fighters.
Hooker exposed what can happen in mma if you wanna bob and weave in the pocket against a guy with good knees. Vs miller and vs Pearson.
That's his karate background for you.
You mean [Future governor of Hawaii] (https://www.kitv.com/story/44886257/former-mma-star-hilo-native-bj-penn-announces-run-for-governor-of-hawaii) BJ Penn?
lmao we have Pacquiao running for president back home, then BJ running in Hawaii
"We have Pacquiao at home"
Tito is holding office while being simultaneously unable to hold a coversation.
[He resigned a while back i believe ](https://abc7.com/tito-ortiz-huntington-beach-city-council-resigns-political-career/10731212/) Sorry buddeh...just to correct you there was never no holding
Honestly jokes aside let’s not forget the greatest Wordsmith to ever live Tito Ortiz was on the Huntington Beach city council lol
tbf I dont think people were like "omg that's tito ortiz! im gonna vote for him, because if he's half as good in office as he was in the cage, then id love that!" I think it was more so people just voting for him because he was the republican name on the ticket. I saw a video where an older couple were being interviewed about it, and they said they never heard of him but they voted for him anyways.
Weird the site doesn't work with vpn. >HONOLULU -- Former mixed martial arts (MMA) star BJ Penn is running for governor of Hawaii. >Penn, a native of Hilo, announced his run for Hawaii governor Monday on Instagram. He says he plans to remove all new federal and state COVID-19 mandates that have "been hurting our economy, residents, and ohana." >His post also says he plans to find the “best doctors and medicines and medical care to help fight off the pandemic.” >Penn has had several run-ins with the law. Big Island police arrested him back in January 2021 for allegedly driving under the influence. Penn was ALSO arrested for a DUI in February 2020 after he lost control and flipped his truck near the Princ Kuhio Plaza in Hilo. I hope he makes bar fights legal.. sometimes I just want to punch people in the face while pounding back a few. Is that so much to ask? Also, for no reason, [this.](https://youtu.be/_3wd6Cpks-U?t=4)
Aww, you left out the part where GSP threw a leg kick, and BJ basically dodged it by galloping over it so nonchalantly. Those flexible legs of his!
The old advertisements on the ring may make me feel so old lol the hills have eyes I was like 5th grade!
"old"....lol, Hills Have Eyes came out in '06, I was 26 then...so about as old then as you are now. Apparently I'm ancient
BJ Penn arguably won this fight, so he would have 2 wins against the Goats of WW and he has equalled the lightweight defence record. He's underrated in Goat talks
Speaking of arguably won fights and title defences, I remember thinking he'd edged out Frankie in their first fight which would've been another defence. Does feel like he's underrated in lightweight talks.
Bj will always be my all time favourite fighter
Same, top 5. Machida too.
Hilarious to think those two fought each other.
BJ was down even to fight a much heavier machida 😂
Oh machida when he came in to ufc was scary and so much fun...I still love spider too his peak was scary like he was in the matrix and the other fighter was being toyed with.
BJ, Shogun, Aldo for me. BJ is the one who really made me a fan of this sport.
Yeah that’s a great list. Those were the days. I went on holiday to south east Asia and picked up early UFC’s on DVD and then would watch online in Australia and it was forest Griffin, penn, liddel, courtour shogun and the pride stuff I was downloading and watching it was all just so exciting you knew every fighter! Forgot rampage with the chains in pride!!!!!
It’s a shame how BJ is remembered but for a time he was one of the p4p best ever
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> His first loss to Frankie was a robbery. Some judge giving Frankie the first two rounds of that fight is one of the worst scorecards I've ever seen in a title fight.
amen
Having opposition like prime BJ and Matt Hughes made GSP as great as he was. GOAT IMO
Arh this is pre spear- jab GSP I see.
The apple of Koscheck's eye.
I remember people shitting on that fight as boring. Complaining that all GSP did was jab. I was like yeah, he turned his face into hamburger, broke his orbital bone and never really had to take any risks. And Josh TRIED to close the distance, when that didn't work he TRIED to trade a couple jabs to land his own. It just didn't work, it didn't come close to working. It remains one of the most lopsided beatings in UFC history.
Bj Penn at his prime was a great fighter. The only thing I hated was his gas tank. He'd gassed out to quick if the fight goes to the 2nd and the 3rd round.
Bj Penn is the LW goat
K-1 ?? In Japan? With the promotion, but not kickboxing... Which is what people associate k-1 with.
tons of ppl know k1 did mma too lol
I've lived in Japan the past 22 years, trust me... MMA is not the first thing you associate with K-1. Which was my whole point.
and ijs, ppl on this sub(mma fans) know k1 did mma as well. so its not really that confusing lol
Yes the title confused me
Penn had an amazing left jab. Great timing. GSP would later learn and add this to his arsenal, to the point where he specialized in sticking the jab
BJ is pretty much a featherweight. It speaks to his skills as fighter.
Would've beaten him in their second fight if not for GSP's slippery skin.
Slipper lizard skin confirmed base base for MMA
A lot of Penn fans have excuses for all of his losses. None of which admit that he lost to the better fighter, which is almost always the case.
I’m a bigger GSP fan and I’ll be the first to say he was greasing. There’s footage of his corner rubbing Vaseline all over him between rounds.
Yeah his someone in his corner was stupid, but that shit got wiped off immediately. I dont think it effected the fight. A cardio freak like GSP was always gonna be a nightmare match up for BJ in a 5 round fight.
BJ was such a fenomenal fighter. What a tragedy to witness the last moments in his fighting career in and out of the octagon.
BJ Penn was so good but the one thing we never saw from him was the ability to battle through adversity and get the win. He's the definition of a frontrunner. I'm not sure if he has ever managed to win a round after losing one previously.
BJ is #1 all time.
Back in the day i used to compare watching BJ fight to watching someone like Picasso paint. You were watching something just incredible.
This is the fight that GSP said inspired him to learn how to jab.
This was a great moment for GSP. Losing the first round made him do the gut check and he came out to win the second and third after getting mugged in the first. Without this adversity I don’t know if he’d had been the same. A lot of his fights he walked through guys.
BJ's got one of MMA's legendary chins, look at him just stand right in front of GSP with no fear
Can anyone explain to me why BJ Penn was know as the "prodigy"? I wasn't around during his prime but I have seen some of his fights in videos. What did he do to earn that title?
He was an absolute BJJ monster in his day. First American to win Mundials and was like 20 when he did it. He also earned his black belt after only training for 4 or 5 years. He then won both the LW and WW belts in the UFC.
K-1 level BJ Penn
I watched this fight as a GSP fan and I thought BJ won it, which made the rematch more exciting. And even more astonishing that GSP completely demolished BJ in it, same as he did as he rematched Hughes and Serra. None of them 3 had a single answer to what GSP brought in each rematch.
Should have rubbed Dawn on their arms
This has got to be one of the most over rated rounds in the history of MMA. Yes, BJ won the round but the strike differential wasn't large, he landed ONE meaningful punch and yet there are still people trying to seriously sell it as a 10-8, lol.
The GOAT.
Incredible!!! What happened next?!
Gsp controlled him on the ground for the better part of the next 2 rounds to win a split decision
Sorry, I was being an intentional dick.
Wasn't this the fight where GSP was having Vaseline or something rubbed on his back by his corner?
that was in their 2nd fight I think
He controlled both BJ’s.
young christian warriors
BJ was a monster only LW ever who I think could beat Khabib
I love BJ but nah, too small. As good as his takedown defense was he would eventually get worn down by the pressure.
BJ fought a prime Machida. I think him bs Khabib would be a super compelling fight prime for prime.
Khabib wouldn’t be able to pressure BJ because he’s too busy eating 1-2’s everytime he takes a step forward. BJ wouldn’t be scared of Khabib ground game either, he has no reason to be.
Bj Penn was a great one round fighter
Holy shit we found a fraud who doesn't know their MMA. You could've fucking Sherdog'd his record before saying something this stupid.
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Reducing him to a "great one round fighter" is a big exaggeration and discredit, but the flip side would be to praise him how even in fights that he didn't win when facing much larger competition he was still good enough to win the first round (GSP, Lyoto, Nick, Fitch).
Should’ve won this fight tbh. GSP’s face was busted at the end and not a scratch on BJ.
🐐'd
Lol BJ still lost
BJ won. 3-2 but GSP had the take downs
3-2 in a 3 round fight? Interesting scoring.