It was surprising and tense yet uneventful; however, Gracie was officially ahead. The third and final frame went to Penn once again. Gracie found himself swept to the floor with Penn in his half guard. Penn spent the remainder of the round roughing Gracie up with punches to the head and body. Penn saw the last fight on his contract with K-1 end in victory, bringing his record to With his K-1 contract finished and his bank account enriched, he was still involved in another fight: BJ Penn vs.
With the court battle lasting the entirety of his K-1 contract, Penn and his lawyers were still trying to win a judgment against the UFC for stripping him of his belt. After so much time spent opposite Zuffa, perhaps it was the distance between White and Penn that softened their animosity. The UFC was focusing on its biggest gamble to date, The Ultimate Fighter reality show, which had given the promotion a new lease on life.
Penn, having made good money in K-1, now just wanted his UFC title back. White and Penn hammered out their differences. He would return to the Octagon as a welterweight, and his first opponent would be a man poised to do great things: Georges St-Pierre. Their fight would be a bloody and controversial affair that would resume at UFC 94 in one of the biggest fights the UFC had seen to date.
The first round of their fight saw Penn bloody St-Pierre with a harsh barrage of punches that left him confused and frightened at the sound of the bell. It all seemed to start when St-Pierre suffered what looked to be an accidental eye poke; from there, Penn pressured him and landed often with both hands.
As the horn sounded for the end of Round 1, St-Pierre was smiling, but he looked like a man laughing at gallows humor, unaware that he was the butt of the joke. To think that he could come back and win the fight did not seem realistic at all, but that is exactly what he did.
In Rounds 2 and 3, St-Pierre avoided stand-up exchanges as best he could, closing the distance as quickly as possible while scoring takedowns and maintaining a strong top position.
With his first fight back in the Octagon resulting in a loss, Penn got a shocking chance; he was offered a shot at the man he had beaten so easily for the welterweight title the first time: Matt Hughes. Hughes had been scheduled to face St-Pierre in a rematch of their first fight at UFC 50, but the Canadian had suffered an injury, and thus Penn got to step in as a replacement.
It all seemed too good to be true for Penn fans, while those rooting for Hughes saw a dark cloud gathering on the horizon. Penn had proved in their first fight that his style of fighting seemed to be too much for Hughes; Penn was a far better striker and submissions grappler, while the greatest strengths of Hughes—wrestling and raw power—would give him no real advantages. Getting Penn to the floor would be a hard and draining task, and once there, it only put Hughes in danger of being reversed and submitted.
But Hughes wanted the rematch, which even now speaks to his championship heart. He had no intention of running from any fight, no matter how highly favored his opponent may be.
When the fight came at UFC 63, and both men were looking at each other across the Octagon, it seemed like Penn was being handed the title. The first round saw Penn dominate, outclassing Hughes in most aspects of the fight. Hughes came out looking like a man trying to paint a masterpiece of revenge with a brick, while Penn looked like the master about to teach some hard lessons.
Penn had always been terribly hard to take down; his balance was so sound and effortless that conventional means of success were rendered unsuccessful to a degree that they seemed childish and without merit. If anything, the time Hughes spent trying to take Penn down saved him from looking like an utter novice in a stand-up fight. So, in the early minutes of Round 1, Hughes managed to avoid embarrassment by being offensive in his takedown attempts, which may sound trite, but coups have been realized on smaller tape.
With remaining in Round 1, Penn landed a hard right behind a setup jab that rocked Hughes and sent him into desperation mode. Hughes grabbed a successful single-leg, and from there Penn went to work on his dazed yet game opponent, showing his incredible flexibility in staying to the side. An accidental eye-poke sent Hughes to his knees, but once the fight was restarted, Hughes went after Penn like a wounded animal. Hughes pushed Penn to the cage and went after the takedown, but with 30 seconds left in the round, he went back to his corner on the losing end of the opening frame.
In the second frame, Penn survived under Hughes after a takedown, defending himself against the ground-and-pound of the champion and slipping around to take his back. Once again, Penn had the back of Hughes, landing punches and elbows while snaking his legs up higher, eventually locking up a triangle-leg choke from the back, up high.
Hughes survived, but by the narrowest of margins. Had there been another 15 seconds remaining, chances are he would have slipped unconscious. In Round 3, Penn came out, fighting tired and also suffering an injury to his rib. Suddenly, Hughes had the advantage, landing punches in the stand-up as Penn seemed like nothing more than a punching bag. Hughes landed a stinging combination, while Penn stumbled about the Octagon with cement shoes. Penn, stung from punches and wounded and tired, seemed to duck for a takedown, and Hughes locked up a headlock, pulling Penn down to the floor.
From there, the champion was able to dominate the position, get Penn onto his back, lock up a back-to-mat crucifix position and rain down punches into the defenseless face of Penn until the fight was called. After a fruitless comeback to the UFC in , Penn received more unexpected good fortune; he was invited to coach the fifth season of The Ultimate Fighter. The UFC was trying to revitalize the lightweight division, and to do so, White called upon two big names at pounds: Penn and his old rival, the first UFC lightweight champion, Jens Pulver.
Accepting the role would require Penn to drop back down to lightweight, but he did so, finally seeming to realize that he belonged among other men his size. Of course, the chance to avenge his first defeat was the right sweetener needed to get him to sign on the dotted line. Right off the bat, Penn was playing rough, and although Pulver smiled it off, you could tell it stung. As confrontational as Penn was, Pulver was the better coach, dominating the bulk of the competition as two members of his team made it to the finals.
As good a coach as Pulver proved to be, Penn simply outclassed him, basically having his way with the former lightweight champion before finally securing the rear-naked choke midway through the second round.
It was his only fight of the year, but he was back in the win column and fighting where he belonged among the lightweights. His record improved to , with three of his four losses coming from the higher weight classes. When it came to , Penn had avenged his lone loss and looked like a man who had finally found some balance.
Standing above and beyond the rest of the competition at lightweight, Penn was the clear heir apparent to the throne that had been stripped from Sean Sherk following a failed drug test after his victory over Hermes Franca at UFC Penn was picked to face the Joe Stevenson, who was riding a four-fight win streak.
The bout was set for UFC 80, and while Stevenson was a young, highly experienced powerhouse of a grappler, the bout seemed like a rehash of Penn vs. Hughes, but with Stevenson looking every bit like a lesser version of the latter.
Everywhere Stevenson turned, Penn was there to batter him senseless with a two-fisted attack that seemed to belong more to a middleweight than a lightweight. Soon, both men were awash in blood, and Stevenson looked like a sailor dying for the harbor. Stevenson finally got a reprieve as the horn sounded, but all the pep talks and Vaseline in the world weren't going to help him, and he looked like he knew it.
He came out game but bled like prey, and Penn feasted on that, choking Stevenson out with ease and winning the pound crown to earn his second UFC title in two divisions. With such an easy victory, Penn should have been delighted, or so it would seem. Instead, he called out Sherk. Lyoto Machida and Wanderlei Silva vs.
Keith Jardine. Once again, Penn faced a powerful wrestler with high submission acumen, and once again The Prodigy made that type of fighter look woefully out of his depth. Penn clearly wanted to keep the fight standing so he could use his superior hands, and Sherk aided and abetted this by abandoning his greatest strength in order to engage Penn in a fistfight. Obviously, that is a bit of a misrepresentation of what happened; clearly, Sherk knew that taking down Penn without threatening him with anything else would be hard, but in focusing on engaging Penn in the stand-up, it looked as if he was waiting for a window of opportunity that simply never came.
Penn kept Sherk on the end of his punches all night long, battering him with a slick jab nearly at will. When the end came, it was off a knee to the face and a barrage of punches as Sherk wilted against the cage. Penn was now the undisputed king of the lightweights, with his first successful title defense leaving him untaxed and hungry for more. Perhaps too hungry—he wasted no time in calling out St-Pierre, the newly minted welterweight king.
Once again, Penn was daring to do what no one had ever done — hold one title while moving up in weight to capture another — and at the time, given how badly he had bloodied St-Pierre in their first meeting, it seemed like he just might be able to do it.
Penn was now , and it looked like his momentum was going to see him do the unthinkable. History was on the line, and two excellent fighters—arguably two of the best in the sport, in addition to being pound-for-pound luminaries—were willing to put their titles on the table to match their ambitions.
But we should make no mistake about who was really making this happen; Penn was pushing to make history. St-Pierre was simply the man who was defending his title against another challenger — perhaps the most dangerous man he had ever faced in the Octagon. Pierre vs. Penn II in order to hype the event. It remains perhaps the best installment of the series. Primetime gave viewers a rare glimpse inside both fighters, their camps and their rivalry, building the tension to a fever pitch come fight night.
When Round 1 began, Penn learned like the rest of us that this version of St-Pierre was far better than the man he had bloodied at UFC Pierre crowded Penn against the fence, wearing him down with his size and power, and then began to take him down and pound on him, round after round. Penn remained game, but St-Pierre was working an excellent game plan, and to top it all off, he was intent on punishing Penn toward the end in order to make his own statement of greatness.
This would leave a cloud over the fight that remains to this day, no matter what either side has to say on the matter. Instead of wallowing in despair, Penn took his lightweight title to heart and went right back to work defending it, alive with purpose and hungry to share the pain.
First on his list was a bout against Kenny Florian, a finalist in the middleweight division from the first season of The Ultimate Fighter. Florian was , riding a six-fight win streak, with five of those victories coming by way of stoppage.
Penn had him on the defensive most of the night, landing the harder shots and winning the rounds. When the fight hit the floor in Round 4, Penn took his back and caught Florian in a rear-naked choke, tapping him out.
Sanchez had grown into an animal in the UFC and looked like he just might be crazy enough to give Penn problems, especially if he could crowd the champion against the cage and let his hands go.
Then, every fine and well-reasoned theory about the advantages of Sanchez—power, cardio, aggression and crazy—were crushed as Penn caught him rushing forward with a shot that knocked his equilibrium somewhere into the third row. For the rest of the fight, Sanchez tried his hardest to fight back, searching for any advantage to be had, but Penn was simply too much, all the time.
I do believe Khabib walked away too early in that respect. He probably would have stayed if UFC rubber-stamped this fight. Since I was around to cover both eras, I can say with some degree of certainty that Nurmagomedov fought the tougher competition. I was 25 and in my fighting prime when I went up to pounds and won the belt from Matt Hughes.
I cannot blame Khabib for not going up and fighting Kamaru Usman for the belt and then sparking a greater conversation of who was the best of the two fighters who won the and belts. I will fight anytime until the day I die. If the 32 year-old Nurmagomedov walked away too early, then Penn walked away too late.
The Hawaiian bounced around several different weight classes and was eventually forced to retire at the age of 40 after losing seven straight and nine of his last But when he beat those judo black belts, he was not a bjj white belt, he looked closer to a purple belt. He just had to wear the judo white belt.
Of course he would school those guys. I would like facts. What are his most impressive accomplishments as a Bjj Practitioner? Post videos if you can. And fuck all you angry nerds Thanks. Last edited: May 30, SocraticMethod , May 30, Joined: Aug 12, Messages: 15, Likes Received: It's just the BB in 3 years and winning the mundials, nothing more.
Mau , May 30, Joined: Dec 25, Messages: 13, Likes Received: 5. No more posts needed. Cam Zink , May 30, This question required a thread. It's never been answered before.
Joined: Nov 28, Messages: 8, Likes Received: He can play piano like a boss after a few weeks of practice. GordaoPreguico , May 30, Joined: Dec 23, Messages: 12, Likes Received:
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