B.J. Penn: From Prodigy to Pinnacle
Jan 28, 2009
It took B.J. Penn 11
seconds to make his mark on mixed martial arts.
He stormed in and, like Elvis Presley, promptly left the building. Fans were left wanting more. Caol Uno was left slumped inside the Octagon, his leg folded away from his body, a top lightweight on the wrong end of an emphatic statement.
That performance -- for better or worse -- created the expectations
for Penn’s career.
Puzzling displays of disappointment followed, matching flashes of brilliance. He was tabbed the future at 155 pounds, but he couldn’t take the title from Jens Pulver and couldn’t claim the vacant gold against Uno in a rematch either.
He kissed fallen juggernaut Matt Hughes on the mouth. He licked his own blood. He cried tears of joy. He hit himself in the head with enthusiasm. It was a performance two title fights late but at just the right time to prove his prodigious talents.
Then Penn left the building again. His performances outside the UFC were mixed over the next two years, and back-to-back losses greeted his return, including the first stoppage of his career when Matt Hughes beat him in a rematch at UFC 63.
Rock Bottom
“Lowest point?” Penn deliberates out loud. “Lowest point?”
Losing to Matt Hughes. He settles on it. It had to be. Having a fight stopped for the prideful fighter is Penn’s rock bottom -- antithetical to the way he’s carried himself through the sport as a technically superior bully, a fighter who never quits, a fighter that makes others quit.
Something had to change.
“It was the day of my 28th birthday. I went out, got wasted,” Penn recalls. “Woke up the next day, I was like, ‘I’m not gonna let this be one of those pity hangover days. This is the first day of the rest of my life. I’m gonna move forward. I’m coming off two losses. I’m still in a great position. I’m more known than I’ve ever been in my career. I’m gonna do this. Let’s just go forward and I’m gonna try and be the best.’”
Three wins and a UFC lightweight title followed. He’s come a long way from the 23-year-old who lost to Pulver in his first title fight.
“My mindset for the first Pulver fight, [I was] just excited. I couldn’t believe I was the main event in the UFC. … I was just a kid. I didn’t have more than a couple minutes of fighting under me,” Penn says. “Here I am 17 freakin’ fights later, I got a chance to make history and be one of the greatest ever.”
Penn’s legacy is on the line
against St. Pierre at UFC 94.
Penn, of course, is speaking of his rematch
Saturday with Georges
St. Pierre, who defeated him via split decision in their first
encounter three years ago. Now, instead of being a battle of
contenders, it’s a battle of current UFC champions -- lightweight
versus welterweight, the first of its kind in the Octagon.
“I can’t believe I’m here. Just some kid from Hilo, from Hilo High School,” Penn says. “If you would have told me when I was 15 years old that in 15 years [I] would be fighting for the chance to be one of the greatest fighters of all time, I’d be like, ‘Yeah, get out of my face. Whatever. I’m already one of the greatest fighters of all time. What are you talking about?’”
Penn expects to come in right at 170 pounds for the fight. Once again the underdog -- a role he relishes because it’s “been a while” -- as he climbs a weight class, Penn sees a parallel between the prefight criticisms he hears now and those that he silenced when he choked out Hughes at UFC 46.
“It kind of feels like people are writing me off in certain ways, but that’s what I love,” he says. “If you underestimate me in any way, shape or form, it’s over. [St. Pierre is] just an athlete. He doesn’t want to take a punch. He loves dishing out punishment and he hates taking punishment. That’s why he dishes it out so much and so well. He really doesn’t enjoy taking punishment.”
Penn notes the difference between a fighter at heart, as he sees himself, and an athlete at heart, as he sees St. Pierre.
“With that said,” he adds, “I gotta go out there and beat him up.”
A Prodigious Legacy
It started at UFC 84. Sean Sherk’s blood was on his tongue, but St. Pierre’s name was on his mind. He asked the audience if they wanted the mega-fight. The answer was a resounding yes, and that noise has carried from the MGM Grand to Canada to Hawaii and back to Vegas, all places the UFC has taken its promotional blitz for Saturday’s bout.
Now it’s time to fight. Penn wants to make a statement that echoes the one he made years ago against Uno, and defeating St. Pierre is the loudest way to say it.
“I definitely feel I’ll be the faster person in there,” Penn says. “He hasn’t been fighting people that are faster than him. I’m gonna be the faster man and that’s gonna give him problems. Picture Pacquiao-De La Hoya.”
Pacquiao-De La Hoya was the highest grossing pay-per-view in 2008 -- a true mega-fight. Penn and St. Pierre’s paramount paths in MMA aspire to make this clash the biggest fight in UFC history. Unlike the boxing bout, however, both fighters are in their prime.
It’s more than 25 minutes of fighting for both. It’s about being remembered in 25 years.
Should Penn emerge victorious, he’ll surpass his prodigious moniker into legend status. He’s willing to suffer for that, he says, more than St. Pierre is. As someone who strikes himself after a fight, Penn isn’t worried about punishment. Whatever happens in the Octagon on Saturday, he has the utmost confidence that when he exits, his legacy will have become what it’s supposed to be.
As for where his legacy currently stands, he doesn’t care.
“It’s not finished. My legacy is not finished,” Penn says. “It’s got one more chapter -- January 31. … After January 31, they’re gonna be saying a lot more.”
If he wins, one thing everyone will have to say is that Penn is the UFC’s first champion to hold a belt in two weight classes simultaneously. Plenty would call him the pound-for-pound best in MMA, too.
“There’s a lot of fighters that push the sport forward like Randy Couture and Chuck Liddell and everybody,” Penn says, “so I’d like to be known as one of the most technical, one of the greatest.”
With his rock-‘n’-roll tendencies far behind him, “The Prodigy” could finally be ready to reach his pinnacle, to spend his time as king before leaving the building once more.
He stormed in and, like Elvis Presley, promptly left the building. Fans were left wanting more. Caol Uno was left slumped inside the Octagon, his leg folded away from his body, a top lightweight on the wrong end of an emphatic statement.
Advertisement
Puzzling displays of disappointment followed, matching flashes of brilliance. He was tabbed the future at 155 pounds, but he couldn’t take the title from Jens Pulver and couldn’t claim the vacant gold against Uno in a rematch either.
Less than three years into his career, however, he did become a
champion -- at 170 pounds.
He kissed fallen juggernaut Matt Hughes on the mouth. He licked his own blood. He cried tears of joy. He hit himself in the head with enthusiasm. It was a performance two title fights late but at just the right time to prove his prodigious talents.
Then Penn left the building again. His performances outside the UFC were mixed over the next two years, and back-to-back losses greeted his return, including the first stoppage of his career when Matt Hughes beat him in a rematch at UFC 63.
Rock Bottom
“Lowest point?” Penn deliberates out loud. “Lowest point?”
Losing to Matt Hughes. He settles on it. It had to be. Having a fight stopped for the prideful fighter is Penn’s rock bottom -- antithetical to the way he’s carried himself through the sport as a technically superior bully, a fighter who never quits, a fighter that makes others quit.
Something had to change.
“It was the day of my 28th birthday. I went out, got wasted,” Penn recalls. “Woke up the next day, I was like, ‘I’m not gonna let this be one of those pity hangover days. This is the first day of the rest of my life. I’m gonna move forward. I’m coming off two losses. I’m still in a great position. I’m more known than I’ve ever been in my career. I’m gonna do this. Let’s just go forward and I’m gonna try and be the best.’”
Three wins and a UFC lightweight title followed. He’s come a long way from the 23-year-old who lost to Pulver in his first title fight.
“My mindset for the first Pulver fight, [I was] just excited. I couldn’t believe I was the main event in the UFC. … I was just a kid. I didn’t have more than a couple minutes of fighting under me,” Penn says. “Here I am 17 freakin’ fights later, I got a chance to make history and be one of the greatest ever.”
Dave
Mandel/Sherdog.com
against St. Pierre at UFC 94.
“I can’t believe I’m here. Just some kid from Hilo, from Hilo High School,” Penn says. “If you would have told me when I was 15 years old that in 15 years [I] would be fighting for the chance to be one of the greatest fighters of all time, I’d be like, ‘Yeah, get out of my face. Whatever. I’m already one of the greatest fighters of all time. What are you talking about?’”
Penn expects to come in right at 170 pounds for the fight. Once again the underdog -- a role he relishes because it’s “been a while” -- as he climbs a weight class, Penn sees a parallel between the prefight criticisms he hears now and those that he silenced when he choked out Hughes at UFC 46.
“It kind of feels like people are writing me off in certain ways, but that’s what I love,” he says. “If you underestimate me in any way, shape or form, it’s over. [St. Pierre is] just an athlete. He doesn’t want to take a punch. He loves dishing out punishment and he hates taking punishment. That’s why he dishes it out so much and so well. He really doesn’t enjoy taking punishment.”
Penn notes the difference between a fighter at heart, as he sees himself, and an athlete at heart, as he sees St. Pierre.
“With that said,” he adds, “I gotta go out there and beat him up.”
A Prodigious Legacy
It started at UFC 84. Sean Sherk’s blood was on his tongue, but St. Pierre’s name was on his mind. He asked the audience if they wanted the mega-fight. The answer was a resounding yes, and that noise has carried from the MGM Grand to Canada to Hawaii and back to Vegas, all places the UFC has taken its promotional blitz for Saturday’s bout.
Now it’s time to fight. Penn wants to make a statement that echoes the one he made years ago against Uno, and defeating St. Pierre is the loudest way to say it.
“I definitely feel I’ll be the faster person in there,” Penn says. “He hasn’t been fighting people that are faster than him. I’m gonna be the faster man and that’s gonna give him problems. Picture Pacquiao-De La Hoya.”
Pacquiao-De La Hoya was the highest grossing pay-per-view in 2008 -- a true mega-fight. Penn and St. Pierre’s paramount paths in MMA aspire to make this clash the biggest fight in UFC history. Unlike the boxing bout, however, both fighters are in their prime.
It’s more than 25 minutes of fighting for both. It’s about being remembered in 25 years.
Should Penn emerge victorious, he’ll surpass his prodigious moniker into legend status. He’s willing to suffer for that, he says, more than St. Pierre is. As someone who strikes himself after a fight, Penn isn’t worried about punishment. Whatever happens in the Octagon on Saturday, he has the utmost confidence that when he exits, his legacy will have become what it’s supposed to be.
As for where his legacy currently stands, he doesn’t care.
“It’s not finished. My legacy is not finished,” Penn says. “It’s got one more chapter -- January 31. … After January 31, they’re gonna be saying a lot more.”
If he wins, one thing everyone will have to say is that Penn is the UFC’s first champion to hold a belt in two weight classes simultaneously. Plenty would call him the pound-for-pound best in MMA, too.
“There’s a lot of fighters that push the sport forward like Randy Couture and Chuck Liddell and everybody,” Penn says, “so I’d like to be known as one of the most technical, one of the greatest.”
With his rock-‘n’-roll tendencies far behind him, “The Prodigy” could finally be ready to reach his pinnacle, to spend his time as king before leaving the building once more.
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