UFC Hall of Famer BJ Penn Needs to Get It Together Before Fight
BJ Penn is a legendary UFC fighter and former champion, but he’s been in a lot of legal trouble lately. With a fight coming up soon against Nik Lentz, Penn needs to get it together before he spirals out of control. Let’s overview BJ Penn’s career and figure out where it all went wrong. Then, we can discuss the steps he needs to take to get back on the right track.
BJ Penn on top
Penn has had an illustrious career in the UFC, and in fact, his first-ever MMA fight was for the UFC. After returning from fighting in Japanese MMA organizations, Penn took on Georges St-Pierre for a chance at welterweight gold.
Although he failed to beat St-Pierre, Penn eventually dropped down in weight class and won the lightweight championship. After defending his lightweight belt, Penn challenged St-Pierre again in the hopes that Penn would become the first-ever two-weight class champion.
Penn again failed to beat St-Pierre, so he returned to lightweight to defend his belt some more. After several successful title defenses, he’d lose to Frankie Edgar twice in a row. Unfortunately, that’s when Penn started to fall from grace.
Loss streak and bar fights
Not long after BJ Penn’s losses to Edgar, he started losing fight after fight. Penn hasn’t won a single UFC fight since 2010, and he’s been on a 7 fight losing streak since then.
Penn’s losing so much that even his boss, Dana White, said recently that he doesn’t want to give Penn another fight because White knows that Penn will probably lose again.
Like many fighters, Penn’s probably scratching to get a win. Much like how Conor McGregor has been acting out ever since his loss to Khabib Nurmagomedov, Penn has also been acting out since he started losing so many fights.
In 2015, Penn got into a bar fight in Hawaii. In June of 2019, he got into another bar fight in Hawaii. Most recently, in August of 2019, he got into yet another bar fight in Hawaii.
His most recent bar fight is the most troubling one to date. BJ Penn drunkenly dared the other man to hit him on the chin after Penn insulted the strength of the guy. The guy landed a two-piece combo on Penn’s chin, knocking him out briefly.
If that was a real UFC fight, the referee would’ve stopped it and declared the other guy the winner. But Penn, in his drunken stupor, decided that he didn’t lose, and sucker-punched the other guy as he was walking away.
Penn then took him to the ground, mounted him, and started punching him in the head before his friends pulled him off. This disturbing incident not only shows just how terrible of a person Penn is when he’s drunk. But it also shows that he can’t take a punch as well anymore.
In the UFC, Penn was known for never being knocked out, as he’s only been knocked out once. But if he’s getting knocked out by a guy in a bar fight, then that could mean that he’d get knocked out in his next UFC fight against Lentz.
Sobering up
Other fighters and other people in the MMA community are pleading with BJ Penn to sober up and change his life. Even his next opponent, Nik Lentz, wants him to sober up before their fight so that they can actually fight in the first place.
Many fans don’t like Lentz, so fans are rooting for Penn to win that fight. However, these altercations have left a bad taste on everyone’s tongue, and so everyone is hoping that Penn sobers up and cleans up his act before this fight.
The UFC has yet to determine the time and place for this fight, but fans are hoping for two things, one, it’ll be BJ Penn’s last fight and two, that he’ll be a new man before and after it.
