MMA Fighting - DAMN! They Were Good: B.J. Penn's Place In The Pantheon Of MMA Greats

Episode Date: May 26, 2023

DAMN! They Were Good celebrates the careers of the most exciting and influential fighters in MMA history, and on this episode, the MMA Fighting crew remembers the best of former UFC lightweight and welterweight champion, B.J. Penn. As the first non-Brazilian to ever win gold at the BJJ World Championships, Penn entered the UFC in 2001 with an immense amount of hype, and over his 18-year career, the man named “The Prodigy” more than lived up to his moniker. Arguably the best lightweight in the world at the time, just three years into his MMA career, Penn did the unthinkable, jumping up a weight class and submitting the top pound-for-pound fighter in the sport, Matt Hughes, to claim his first UFC title. After that historic win, Penn bounced around, chasing ever greater feats, like destroying lineal lightweight champion Duane Ludwig and then facing off with future light heavyweight champion Lyoto Machida, losing a competitive decision. In 2008, Penn finally decided to stop chasing his fights of fancy and put his head down to stake out a legacy at lightweight, claiming the title with a win over Joe Stevenson to become the second fighter in history to win titles in two weight classes inside the UFC, and still the only man to win the lightweight and welterweight belts. For nearly a decade, Penn chased greatness anywhere he could in a way that few ever have. That daring made him beloved to fans and respected among his fellow fighters. Even to this day, all time greats like Anderson Silva have called him the greatest fighter ever, and so for this edition of DAMN, host Jed Meshew is joined by MMAFighting’s Shaheen Al-Shatti and Eric Jackman to remember their favorite moments from “The Prodigy.” Follow Jed Meshew @JedKMeshew Follow Shaun Al-Shatti @ShaunAlShatti Follow Eric Jackman @NewYorkRic Subscribe: http://goo.gl/dYpsgH Check out our full video catalog: http://goo.gl/u8VvLi Visit our playlists: http://goo.gl/eFhsvM Like MMAF on Facebook: http://goo.gl/uhdg7Z Follow on Twitter: http://goo.gl/nOATUI Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Support for this show comes from the Audible Original, the downloaded two. Ghosts in the Machine. The Earth only has a few days left. Rosco Cudulian and the rest of the Phoenix colony have to re-upload their minds into the quantum computer, but a new threat has arisen that could destroy their stored consciousness forever. Listen to Oscar winner Brendan Fraser reprised his role as Rosco Cudulian in this follow-up to the Audible Original Blockbuster. The Downloaded, it's a thought-provoking sci-fi journey where identity, memory, and morality collide. Robert J. Sawyer does it again with this much-anticipated sequel that leaves you asking,

What are you willing to lose to save the ones you love? The Downloaded 2. Ghosts in the Machine. Available now, only from Audible. Support for this show comes from the Audible original The Downloaded 2. Ghosts in the Machine. The Earth only has a few days left. Rosco Cudullian and the rest of the Phoenix colony have to re-upload their minds into the quantum computer, but a new threat has arisen that could destroy their stored consciousness forever.

Listen to Oscar winner Brendan Fraser reprised his role as Rosco Cudulian in this follow-up to the Audible original blockbuster, the downloaded. It's a thought-provoking sci-fi journey where identity, memory, and morality collide. Robert J. Sawyer does it again with this much-anticipated sequel that leaves you asking, what are you willing to lose to save the ones you love? The downloaded two, Ghosts in the Machine, available now, only from Audible. Hello, friends, and welcome to another edition of Damn They Were Good. My name is Jed Meshue, a writer for mhmapfiting.com.

A great website. Some say the best website. And you know the deal by now. to remember some of our favorite fighters in MMA history. And guys, excited, particularly excited, frankly, because we're here to talk about my favorite fighter in MMA history. It's right. It's time for the BJ Penn Memorial Service. So before we get into all things of Prodigy, though,

let me introduce my co-host, the panel on this one, two of my colleagues at that great website, M.AFighting.com, and fellow pen lovers, Mr. Shehinawshadhi, Mr. Eric Jackman. Gentlemen, gentlemen, are we excited about this? How are we feeling heading into the pen chronologue? I'm super excited.

There's been enough time between the sad parts of the BJ Penn experience and now that I've gotten over it and now we can celebrate the really fun and exciting and awesome stuff. So I feel great. I've never been happier to be called upon to do something and I'm super excited about it. I'm glad to hear that he's your favorite. I knew you had an affinity. I wasn't sure where you stood, but he is also my favorite

fighter by a country mile. And yeah, let's let's talk about the happier times. That's the kind of positivity right there. I will say, I like where Eric's coming from already a little bit better. You phrased this as a memorial service in your intro there. And I'm not sure if that sets the right, the tone that maybe I was hoping for, but I'm very much here to celebrate a man who I think we can get into it, but I think there is no wider gulf that I can think of

of perception when it comes to 2023 how people perceive this person in MMA compared to what I think is probably the proper way and maybe how things would have been 10 years ago for a different type of fan base than BJ Penn.

I think the way he's perceived by a lot of people who weren't there for it is so vastly so far away from what the actual reality of the moment was that I'm excited for this. Yeah. So that's, I mean, we've got a lot to unpack here as we get through it. And that was kind of one of my big thoughts coming in here was when I reached out, I wanted to do the Penn one because, so this is going to be coming out on Friday, I think, is when we have decided this show.

On Thursday, we'll mark the 15-year anniversary of his victory. over Sean Shirk, a fight we will certainly be talking about, his defense of the U.S. I wayway title. And so using that as the excuse. But as I kind of reached out, I was like, hey, guys, I'm going to do BJ Penn. You two were the only ones. I did not reach to anyone else. I came to y'all first.

You said, yes, thankfully, and here we are. I thought it would be a very happy thing. I was like, hell yeah, he's my favorite fighter of all time, because Ricky is, he is, BJ Penn and Fador are the reasons I became a fan. band basically. And BJ was always the primary one for me for most of my career.

But as I got into this, as we went back, there's just a lot to unpack. And I think, Shaheen, you summed it up or said it very well in that. The Gulf is enormous. Like,

I am, what's the baseball card that's like worth $20 million or Honest Wagner or whatever the shit that is? Nailed it. I feel like I am old. baseball people because I'm sure Honus Wagner must have been very good if you are

Methuselah and watched him play and us young whippersnappers don't know because in me I'm like I don't know feel like Aaron Judge would take that dude yard whatever and I feel like that's where we are with BJ where anyone who's a Connor McGregor fan or even more recent has no concept for for what BJ was at the time that he was. And frankly, I'm not even sure how to contextualize him for some of this because the end was so bad. And the highs maybe aren't as high as I remembered them. I don't know. So I'm excited to unpack this, particularly because, Ricky, you seem to have such enthusiasm

that this going back didn't damper your spirits at all, which I'm very pleased about. No, in fact, it did the opposite. It heartened me. It reminded me like why I love this dude and why he was kind of a little bit ahead of his time almost. Like he, you know, we're talking about how he might be forgotten to history. But I think if you really like unpack his career and the things he did, a lot of it kind of like echoes in 20203. He may not be the guy that people first point to, but the things he did, I think are as relevant as ever. And it'll also be super interesting to kind of make those comparisons.

Also, I think, too, Jed, you brought up almost like someone who's coming to this conversation having no context of BJ outside of sort of their lived experience of BJ of maybe whatever headlines of, you know, getting knocked out outside of a bar or losing 7,000 fights in a row, something like that. I think also BJ just doesn't, he did not ever do himself any favors in that regard, right? Because if you're just someone newcoming and you're coming from the era of Habib Nambrico Madov and Charles Olivaire and all these guys who are just murderers, and then you look at this admittedly chubby, kind of out of shape dude who was never the scariest-looking person in the room. And you're hearing all of us sort of wax poetic about the demon that this guy used to be. I can very, very easily get to the point of where I would imagine some of these people are just like, all right, guys, you, yeah, this is some rose colored glasses type of stuff of like, okay, he wasn't that good. But I'm right there with you, Eric, where going back and sort of revisiting a lot of these memories and these fights and these moments, it was a heartening experience for me. Because the BJ experience has been really sad for a really long time to the point where you almost want to shut it out of your memory. but like going back and re-experiencing a lot of this was very fun.

Like I had a really good time remembering why we speak of this guy in the way that we do. Yeah. One of the things that struck me the most, because whenever we do this, it takes me a while because I go and watch every fight chronologically. All the fights I can't. Some of them you can't. With BJ, it's great. You can actually find all of his fights because he started his career in the UFC functionally.

So you can go back and look at that. And it struck me how quickly, like, when he first hit the UFC, he wasn't out of shape. Like, he was, and I'm not even saying he was out of shape later. Like, he was just in BJ shape. Yeah, the facade of being in some kind of shape, you know? Yeah, you know, he clearly, he was a guy who worked out, but also didn't say no to a pizza or a beer. And, like, that was who, that's who I think of him as still. And you go back and watch him, you know, fight Dean Thomas or whatever.

And it was like, there was like a minute when he was a young man who was trying real hard. And then that went by the wayside instantly and created the BJ. Frankly, part of the reason I love him. And that's where I want to get to the heart of today. And before we hop into categories, I have a couple of questions. And it's all speaking to a sort of broader thing that I think is getting to my fandom of BJ because I think that there is a big reason that I like him. Is that he just looked like a dude?

Is that he didn't try that hard seemingly? And so my first question to broach is, I think it was Dana White that said this, but it's certainly been a forum topic of conversation. Is BJ Penn the biggest underachiever in MMA history? And for context, for the listeners at home, the context here is there previously was a big question if John Jones was going to be that guy because of his myriad problems with the law.

But it had always been a forum topic of conversation. And that's with the caveat that BJ achieved a whole shitload. But did he underachieve even with the massive amount of accolades he already has? Is he the biggest underachiever in the sports history? I think it would be an easy argument to make to say that. I think it'd be very simple to kind of draw that line from look at the shape he was in, look at the times he was underprepared or underfocused. But because of the heights he did reach, because of the things that he was able to do,

the things that he was able to do before other people, I think it'd be hard for me to say that. Just the capturing of two UFC titles at a time when that was not something, right? Randy Couture was the first and BJ Penn was the second to capture titles in two different weight classes. the dedication he had to jujitsu in terms of how quickly he was able to achieve black belt status. Like the man is, Prodigy is his nickname, but it fits, right?

He had all the natural talent in the world, but the things he was able to kind of do, especially early in the career and then in that late lightweight run, it's hard for me to think he underachieve because when he was at his peak, what he did at the peak was like immeasurable. Like he felt like the best fighter in the world at certain times. I mean, he definitely was the best fighter in the world. world at times. We'll hop into that later.

Yeah, it's definitely possible at the prime of his lightweight career that he was the number one pound for pound fighter. So it's hard for me to look at anybody who achieved that, who was a number, you know, a possibly number one pound for pound fighter titles in two different weight classes, kind of carved his own path and say like he was an underachiever. But then there's the part of me that's a fan of him that's like I would have loved to see more. I would have loved to see him dedicated. But, but I will say that, conversation is easy to have. And then the charm and the kind of like the, the every man part of it or like the part that we identify might go away, right? If he was that dedicated, if he was GSP,

he wouldn't be B. J Penn. He'd be GSP. So I, there's part of it that makes me think, like, I don't know if I want that, that outcome. I definitely don't want the end of his career. That part I could have done without. I don't know what you're talking about. I have no concept of what what you're talking about. BJ had an excellent career that ended after a good, solid back and forth fight with Nick D.S.

Yeah, but, but there, I think we would lose something if he was a different, if he had a different makeup, you know? So it's hard for me to call him an underachiever. I'm happy with kind of what he was able to achieve as a fan of his, um, without going further than that, you know? I think,

Shaheen, you know, where, where are you at on this? I think that is the correct. answer, ultimately. Because again, the way we frame it, right, is the biggest underachiever in the history. I think there's a very easy leap to just say yes. But I think also that just dismisses and discounts who he actually was and what he did. And also just what made him BJ, which is what Eric was sort of getting to, right? And that goes back to maybe what we were talking about at the beginning of like the Gulf in perception, right? Because I think even a Fador or like an Anderson or even to a lesser extent, like someone like a Nick D.

is or a Chal Sond or any of these figures who were once so towering in their moment, who went on these long losing streets to end their career. It feels like they're perceived with some semblance of proper historical context that BJ is just not afforded. And he did that to himself. But that's the thing of just, it's hard to contextualize it unless you understand, like, BJ is BJ. And that feels so silly.

And that feels so stupid and so minimalist to say, like, ah, BJ Penn is BJ Penn. but he was like BJ Penn was an entity unto himself he was a paradigm shift right like he was the north star of the lighter weights he was the big bang of all of a lot of these weight classes we see today his entry into the UFC was the dawn of like all of these divisions he was the immaculate conception for like what I think a lot of people consider the best divisions in the sport at this point there's like a very very direct road that begins with BJ Penn and ends with Connor McGregor gallivancing around on yachts as one of the richest athletes in the world, right?

Like that is a very... Connor does not exist without BJ. Yeah. Like there is a... I firmly believe that. There is a very clear through line through all of this. And like Eric said, like you don't earn the nickname, the prodigy, just out of the blue. Like what this dude did back then was unprecedented on so many different levels.

And we could talk about the fights, which I'm sure we're going to get into the fights, but also just the... the BJ penniness of it all, right? It is impossible to overstate the level of don't give a fuck that he exuded in those days, often to his detriment, right? Like, dude left the UFC a bunch of different times, a couple different times over money, other issues,

yet comes back, ends the most dominant reign of the most dominant champion of that era, Matt Hughes in less than a round, seemingly very easy. Tries to sue the UFC when they're trying to put another champion in place because he leaves again, goes out and fights. Leotto Machita, Leoto freaking Machita,

who was like 225, at the peak of BJ's powers. He's on this great winning streak. He's like, I'm going to go just fight the future light heavyweight champion when I'm a lightweight. And like somehow lasts to a decision.

Like this is all just what makes BJ, BJ, right? It's going back to the ultimate Fighter 5 and they're picking their teams. And he's just like, hey, everyone raise your hand if you'd rather be on my team

than Jen's Pover. I rewatch that clip this morning. It's still is hilarious. It's amazing. The man did not give a single shit about anything, and he somehow succeeded in immeasurable ways. So it's hard for me to say that someone was the biggest underachiever of all time, when for a long time they were the greatest lightweight of all time.

And they're probably one of the most important figures in the history of the UFC, if not MMA. So, like, I would say he underachieved, but he's not anywhere on the list of biggest underachievers. I can accept that answer because as long as. as you, we do have to, obviously, I think for sure he underachieve. Absolutely. I'm willing to say he's not one of the biggest ones, in large part because if that's

underachieving, like, shit, I hope I underachieve in my life. If this is, if this is the benchmark for coming up short, I mean, the second ever two-division champion. And let's be honest, the first real one. The first real one. Yeah, I agree. The first actual one. Agree.

Because light heavy weight to heavyweight, come on. Yeah. Who cares? Especially in the way that Andy was doing it in that era. Exactly. Yeah, he was the first real one. The other thing about it is I think people try to frame the biggest underachiever thing as a compliment, right? Because what they're essentially saying is like your potential was off the charts. You could have been the best ever. And they're framing it as kind of a compliment. To me, it's not. But I understand the, the spirit behind it. They're trying to say like, if you knew BJ Penn was a MFer, like, if you know, BJ Penn was a MFer, like, if you If you really were tuned in, he could have been the goat possibly. So I think, you know, they're coming at it from that angle as opposed to saying, like, the guy didn't do anything, which I can respect and understand. But I'm with you. Like, not the biggest underachiever. And Shaheen, you said something that leads me to the other thing I wanted to discuss before we got into it.

As I went back, I need you guys to check me of my history. My memory is a little bit off here for part of what I'm going to say. But the question is pretty simple. Is BJ Penn one of the five most important fighters of all time? Because I think that he is. Not the best not here to talk about the goat list, though I think there is also a debate to be had with BJ, both on the general goat list and the lightweight goat list.

It's a complicated discussion that can be had more. But as I kind of went back, you guys have both kind of talked about it or hinted at it in various points. It's like he is, he was the guiding star for the lower weight classes. Without BJ Penn, Connor McGregor doesn't exist. They said that before I'll say it again, I firmly believe that. Connor honestly took a lot of what BJ did and just built around it better, not technically, but in the career arc version.

But more importantly, like the lightweight division, the featherweight division, they probably exist in the UFC at this point in time with the way that the organization moved. But he and Dana White says this, he's the guy who sparked the revolution. He's the guy who made people care. That in and of itself is incredibly important, just speaking to MMA in general. But the other thing that I kind of like forgot or was a little bit backpocketed, he was really pushing the anti-doping thing long before most other people were to the point where he was the one who pushed to bring VADA testing into the UFC independently or whatever.

And I've made my belief on this pretty clear and that I think anti-doping is very dumb and actually pretty harmful to the UFC writ large. But you can't deny that the UFC ultimately took that ball and ran with it. And in a lot of that comes, I would argue back to BJ. I could be wrong on that part. That could be memory playing tricks on me. but all of that in context. Is he one of the five most important fighters of all time? Ultimately, I'd probably say he falls just short of that list because five is really tough.

Like, you know, you have to put hoist, right? Undeniably, yes. And then you get into the modern era where you have to put the Connor McGregor. Hoyce Conner, Ronda, I think are three that are undeniable. Those are unassailable. I think I think that's three on the rushmore. Fador is also pretty unisellar. there just because of what he represented as a moment.

I'm not sure though. I don't know if I'm ready to say. Here's where it gets dicey. I'm willing to put BJ in the four spot on that rushmore. I think he has an opportunity. I think to what he represents these divisions, he probably is. Here's where it gets dicey for me is because it almost feels like a duplication with others that might appear, right?

Like when you get down to the five and the nitty gritty, you go like, is somebody like John Jones who accomplished probably the most, right? as a UFC fighter. He will be the most, his career resume will be the most decorated. Was he more impactful to the, to the, to the, to the sport than BJ Penn? It probably not, right? So it depends on what that rushmore is going to be. Like is it, is it, is it purely that?

Is it financially? Is it, right? Is it business or is it impact to the martial arts? I feel like impact to the martial arts, BJ Penn has a good argument for that list, right? but man there's there's some people like conor and ronda who like you just can't remove and then you start to get deeper down the list and it gets harder so he'd probably fall just outside for me um but even that right if you're top 10 is that is that something to shake a stick at yeah if you're

one of the top 10 most influential fighters ever it would be hard for me to put him outside of the top 10 i couldn't i think i've got him in my five but if you're making an argument at home when you've got 10 more important fighters than him, I don't think that that's... That's tough. It showed me your work because I don't know that I can find 10 bodies that mattered more to this sport than this man. Then you get to guys like GSP, right?

Who beat him was a huge financial moneymaker for the UFC. So that's where it gets difficult. That's where the tough cuts kind of come. Did GSP have a bigger impact than BJ Penn? Because he's the one headlining the shows. He's the one making all that money for the UFC. when it comes to the resume he's rock solid he's beat him head to head so it's a very tricky kind of conversation for me as a guy who personally loves him and would be biased and if it's my list he's

number one but yeah it's a it's a super interesting question i'd be curious to hear people's list for sure it ultimately it boils down to how you what influential means to your own personal lexicon right because to me at least when you frame it that way top influential figures in martial arts history, it doesn't mean the biggest stars. It doesn't mean the goats. It doesn't mean the people who did the most or sold the most tickets. If this person never picked up a pair of four ounce gloves, would it systemically change the way the sport developed? Would we be in a different world ecosystem within MMA if BJ Penn had never competed? And I think unassailably yes. To me, he is in that five. Just for that reason. If we do not have a BJ

And he is not that guy in the lightweights at that time are, you know, Jen's Pover and whoever else was sort of floating around Japan and that sort of thing. I think a lot of this looks different. And that to me puts him in that five. Because I don't know that you can say that about George St. Pierre or John Jones or Brock Lesnar, whoever you want to throw in the stars. I can hear an argument for GSP, but I don't think John, I think John is just going to go down as the greatest fighter of all time.

And that's nothing to sneeze at. I think it gets hard. No, definitely not. I think it's harder as time goes on, right? Because you talked about like it's not about tickets. But is Connor McGregor's influence bigger than... I think this is bigger than BJ. Like in terms of what he meant for Europe and just different regions within the world of introducing this sport and sort of bringing around about a new generation.

Sure, sure. That's why I'm willing to hear the GSP argument because that part of it is real for him. This is a hard thing to unpack, you know. convincing case as well. But to me, BJ has to be on there. Because what does a lot of this look like without BJ Penn? I have no idea. The lighter weight class part of it

is his best case, right? It's just unassailable. The dude was the light star. It's BJ and Yariah. Those are the two guys that like, at the smaller weights, those are the guys that everybody knew that were like, we need to see them fighting. We don't care. And BJ was willing to say, I don't care either.

I'll fight middle weights and light heavy weights. That's light of way or not. But, yeah. Right outside for me, but like right outside. Yeah. When I just, that was the thing that really started to think on me when I was going back and I was just, because I've, I consider that question sort of a lot in general. And I think that Hoyce, Connor, and Rhonda are the, are three that you cannot leave out of the Mount Rushmore just because of, I, they're just very clearly if you look at the history of it and the arcs of where they go like that, those are. Those are pivot points for the sport.

And the fourth has always been interesting. And BJ feels like he's got a real case there. And particularly when I went back and I thought about the doping aspect and where that is and obviously his influence on the lighterweight divisions. And then just his influence on the rest of the sport and the technical development. Well, that's the DJ is not the first well-rounded fighter. Like he's not the first true mixed martial artist. but he's in a pretty clear lineage of like Frank Shamrock was the first guy who could kind of do everything. And then BJ was pretty quickly after that is like, here's a dude who cannot just do everything,

but is elite, elite at everything. And he and GSP coming up kind of at the same time and really taking this sport to a developmentally new place. Just in the N-Cage product is really underratedly important. for the development of the sport that he played a huge role in. And it's like stuff like that, I think is why for years and years, it may not be true anymore because time moves on. But your favorite fighter's favorite fighter was BJ Penn. That's it.

Like if you just Google the quotes you can find of Anderson Silva, Randy Gattor, Mark Coleman, like the best dudes in history, Nick De who are just like, yeah, who's the best fighter ever? it's BJ Penn. I think Anderson Silva still says it. Oh, he does. Every time. Every time he's asked, BJ Penn. And these are people who know what's up.

Like, they clearly understand what this man means, not just in the terms that we're talking about of everything else, but like just as a dude who fist fights people. And you go back and you hear Randy Couture, the other two division champion, light heavyweight, heavyweight, be like, BJ was a son of a bitch to try and get to the ground. Like, this dude was something different.

And that's what, like, that is why I loved him that all, because all of that was happening during his prime run. And that was why he made me gravitate towards his sport. And so maybe, like I said, maybe I'm being a homer, but I think he's got a real case to be, you know, one of the five most important fighters in the history of the sport. If you're taking away, you know, greatness. And I also just didn't want to do the goat talk. I mean, we'll probably have to get into it. but it just didn't seem as fun. I mean, he's the second best light weight ever.

Whoa, wait a minute. I mean, he's the second grade. I still think he's got an argument. I still think he has an argument for goat. And I feel like that's pretty like what's, what's the argument against? I still think he's got an argument for goat. Really? Even with Hibbe.

I might agree with that. I might agree with that. Even with Habebe? I, yes, I do. But we can get into that later because we should get into the categories. And there are some opportunities for that to arise later. I think there's an argument. machine. But that being

said, let's hop into the categories. In the first category, as always, it's the big one. It's the Mount Rushmore. You got four fights from the fighter's career to put on your Mount Rushmore. I struggled with this one. Really? Yeah, I did.

I struggled cutting one. This was the easiest one of all the dams I've done so far. This was the easiest for me. Really? Yes. I've got... I've got 10 on my list. This was difficult for me. I said, I had six that I could not, that I really, really, really struggled to get down past six. So, Shaheen, you are the most confident.

So let's let you start us off. Where are we leading your list of BJ Penn? So this to me felt fairly straightforward compared to other figures that we have done throughout the history, mostly because there are a lot of downs for BJ Penn. So the ups are very, the ups are very, very. very clear and obvious, right? Like a lot of guys will have a few downs. He's a lot of downs. So to me, there are very clear demarcation points where it's like, okay, this meant something, this meant something, this meant something. So my four, and I'll just go in order, I guess.

How are there only four demarcation points is the thing for me? I thought that there were six that were just like that and then it was trying to parse them out. So maybe I missed. But to me, I'm curious. I'm very curious now. This to me was the four. Obviously the Uno fight. Uno number one, puts him on the map, just comes out there against a guy who was more or less regarded as the best sort of person in that way class in the moment. And in his third professional fights just ends it in 11 seconds. Like that was the birth. And jets.

Yeah. And just gets the hell out of time. Eric, do you have the Uno fight on your rushmore? I do. Rushmore. Okay. So we're in agreement on that one. This was where I just want to peel this back, because I'm assuming if you're going you're not going Dean Thomas. Is that correct,

Cheyenne? I did. Yeah, I skipped Dean. So that was my first real struggle was picking between the two because the Dean Thomas one felt a little bit more revelatory historically because Dean had been on such a big win streak. The UFC was billing Dean Thomas as the best

lightweight in the world at the time and like the uncrowned champion. And so that felt like that probably mattered more but I ultimately sided with the Uno because Uno was the best guy. Uno had beaten Dean.

And it was 11 seconds. And it was 11 seconds. And it was so, it was just a complete gobsback type of moment, right? Like, third professional fight. And the first finish in UFC history at that point in time. Well, trivia question. There technically were two faster finishes. One of them, I'm not counting, because it's Oleg Tartara versus Anthony Maseas,

which is widely believed to have been a thrown fight. So we're just not going to count that. Do either of you know the only other fight that was faster at that point in time in UFC history? No idea. It was Don Frye Thomas Ramirez at like UFC 20 or something. He just immediately punched some fat dude with the right hand and he folded up and it was nine seconds. That tracks. So at the time, this dude, I really wanted to focus on that because 11 seconds, it was

the second fastest finish ever over the best dude in the world. It was the mitts from a guy who was a BJJ world champion. It was McGregor Aldo, but as if McGregor had just started MMA, like a year ago, basically. Yeah. And if McGregor was supposed to be a grappler instead of a dude with a left hand, it's nuts. Yeah. I've talked about the echoes. We've talked about the comparisons to Connor.

It's there. They're all there. And this is that same thing. This is that same kind of that feel. What the F just happened. How did this guy who we didn't think could do this did this? But yes, we're all in agreement. And I also do not have the Dean Thomas fight on my Rushmore.

Interesting. Because I almost put Dean over this one, but I just couldn't because the 11 seconds is too good. Don't get me wrong. I love it. And visually the hanging off Dean's elbow to me, no, that. But also just when he's like messing with the rubber guard and Dean picks him up and he's hanging there. It's just he's a different dude. And they have different freaking dude.

The commentary team has no idea what's going on. They don't know. They're not watching out. What's good? He's got the arm locked. It's great. Yeah. Okay.

So we're all agree. All agree on. Go back to that age of innocence. That was such a wonderful age of innocence. No one had to be on. Honestly, what was going on. I think of that so often when we're doing these.

I go back and I get to listen to like Goldberg not know what the hell's going on. Back when Rogan didn't just. didn't just like scream things and was like he was like actually instructive like person on the broadcast like he was a pretty important yeah but sometimes he wasn't because sometimes he was also like towing the company line like one of these there's a quote where we'll get into it because i am going to say that one of these is on there so i'll save it for that but we're all agreement on uno okay yeah yeah what's your next in sheen um so next i had i jumped a bit and i went to matt hughes at UFC 46.

Yeah, I think to me, I think this is the lock of the lock. This has to be on there. Undeniably. The run that Matt Hughes was on leading into that fight, he was essentially the greatest UFC champion that had existed

up to that point. He was the top pound for bound fighter in the world. And by the way, after, not just before, but he keeps winning after this fight too, right? Like he just continues to be that dude and BJ slips in there and gets that way my hues was 35 and 3 yeah 35 and 3 at that point time and was on like a 12 fight let me

count it up i'm sorry i 12 was it looks like 14 unless my 14 or 14 yeah just staring at it yeah and what and defended his title 5 5 6 defenses yeah yeah that was his 6 defense was was supposed to be bj the thing is the number one pound for pound fighter in the world number and then he gets off another six. Fighter in the world. He gets off another six after that, including a win over BJ. But it's not like it was like he cracked the seal and Matt Hughes was done now. Like Matt Hughes just kept doing what Matt Hughes is going to do after that too, which is the most impressive part.

No, the most impressive part is that BJ Penn is not a welterweight. And he never has been a welterweight. And he never should have ever been a welterweight in the fact that he won a welterweight. It was obscene. You watch that fight. He's not in welterweight shape whatsoever. And it lasts a round. Like that's just the ultimate declaration of unfurling your loaf and then getting the hell out of dodge and just being like, yeah, it's fine.

I did it. I show what I need to do. I'm done. Like, he jets from the UFC after that. I imagine this will come up later as like a threadline throughout this entire combo. But like, is that not why we all fell in love with BJ Penn? Like the idea that he's not a welterweight, that he's just a chubby dude. Just scrap, baby?

Who just scraps? Like, this is the fight that's like, if I had to show one person, one fight, it'd be like, watch this fight. You know, you tell me who you think's going to win. And let's see what happens. It's the best. He is, by modern sensibilities, BJ Penn is a featherweight. If frankly, not a bantam weight. Yeah.

Like a coach would be like, yeah, we can get you to drop down to 135. That seems like a thing we can try and happen. And just dummies him. I love going back because I forgot all the pre-fight interview stuff and the like the way that the fight is packaged and sold. Matt Hughes is beating everybody. There's nowhere else for him to fight realistically. And so they just give, they like BJ and BJ's popular and they give him the shot. And Matt Hughes and his info package is all like, this is bullshit.

Like I, BJ is, this is nonsense. It's disrespectful. He's a lightweight. He just really wants a belt and he's coming up against me. I'm the best fighter in the world. And then he gets dummied. It's just incredible. And I think you just slipped in something important to note for this too.

That was BJ's first title. Like he wasn't the UFC lightweight champion before that at all. Like he, that was his first game of the title was coming up and getting this from that. He fought for it. Twice, yeah. He lost the gin's pulver. And they had the draw, which was.

And then had the draw with Uno in their rematch, which he should have won. So we're queer. if you go back and watch that. I clearly should have won that fight against Eno or whatever. But yeah, this was when I said that the commentary made a previous thing. I also loved that Joe Rogan's commentary on this fight is incredible because, look, Goldie's wrong about a lot of stuff historically,

but almost immediately when whatever, the weird sequence that ends up getting Hughes on his back, like right at that outset, and Roggey's like, yeah, wrestler doesn't like to be in his back. Rogan, oddly is like, no, he's a great mixed martial artist. He's comfortable off his back. He might even try to submit BJ. It's one of the most insane things in retrospect to be like,

now he was going to throw up a fucking triangle and BJ's hip in. Is that what you're telling me, Rogan? Incredible. It really jumped out at me when I was rewatching this fight. So yes, unassailably, this fight, I think, has to be, this is the number one with a bullet on the mountain. Also, last thing to add to this fight, it just speaks to the BJness of

this whole thing. Literally a year after this monumental insane victory he's fighting Leota Machita at 225 pounds because he doesn't care. That's just, that speaks to who this man was. We're two for two. This is pretty good.

So now I think this is maybe where I lost a couple that you guys had because I jumped, I jumped JSP, I jumped Hensow. He was rematch, even the Polver rematch. I went straight to Joe Stevenson. When he captures the UFC light title. I don't have Stevenson, so okay.

To me, it felt like a moment. You capture your second UFC belt. This was sort of BJ's belt in waiting for a long time. He was the uncrown champion for a very long time up to this point. And he got it done. Like that's the second title on the resume. Very dominant. To me, it felt like one of the most important ones.

I did not have it, but visually it's one of my favorites. Like just leaving Joe Stevenson. But in a pool of bloody mess. Like, you know, obviously we start getting the licking the gloves and things like that at this point. Visually, it's like one of my favorites. I love it. But it didn't hit for me in terms of the significance. So that's where I omitted it.

Personal favorite though. One of my personal favorites. Yeah, not one of my personal favorites either. Like it's a perfectly fine one. But, yeah, I left this one off because I went Sean Shirk instead because, yeah, he does win the belt here. But Sean Shirk was the UFC champion. He's a terrible champion. He was a terrible champion.

Sean Shirk era is Loki one of the worst eras in UFC history. Awful champion. Honestly, sort of surprised they didn't shut out of the division again. But, you know, he, I remember the time. I remember it very clearly because this was the height of my BJ fandom. And Shirk gets stripped right when BJ's looking like he's coming back and he's going to be here and he's going to do the thing. and then Shirk is losing the belt, so they do this. And it's like, well, okay, but BJ has historically,

BJ's, you know, cardio issues, and Matt Hughes tackled him and then just laid on him. So what if Sean Shirk's the guy? I went with Sean Shirk over Joe Stevenson because that's when, to me, and I think to a good portion of fans at the time, that was when it was unassailable. Okay, yeah, he is, there's no, no disputing it.

He is, in fact, the lightweight champion of the world finally. Yeah. I also had Shirk. on my list. It's the most complete performance from start to finish. He just brutalizes this dude, has him up against the cage. The style points on the flying knee just absolutely insane.

Calling his own shot. God of loving the Anderson Silva walkoff. Calling the shot. Not only that, calling the shot before that in the Stevenson fight at the getting on the mic after the Stevenson fight and saying, Sean Shirk, you're dead. You're dead.

And he kills him. And he kills him. I've been tinkering with the idea of doing a quote section, but not every fighter like has a good one. Sean Shirk your dead makes me almost want to do it because there are two, it's so good. There are two fantastic BJ Penn quotes as far as I'm concerned. Well, three.

Sean Shirk your dead is one. My favorite is it's the most insane thing. Okay. I'm very excited. Over and over. I only want to be known as the best ever. Is that too much to ask? It was a staple of his video packages for his entire lightweight run.

And it's the most hubris, insane thing that anyone's ever said. And he says it so matter of fact. Yeah. He says it supremacously. Like, it's a real sentiment. I just want to be known as the best ever. And it's not in the way that it's not the way that John Jones, like, believes that. But then is also like an insane person when someone disputes it.

BJ is just saying. It's like a speech. hear Connor saying that or he probably already said that it's always Connor it's always Connor for me that the comparison that the parallels are always Connor for me I've thought I've thought that for years that Connor is just doing BJ's thing for the modern era in a better way and a more monetized way what's number three what's the third quote uh BJ Pender Kahn okay so I thought you let's Mandy wing I'm not going to lie thoughts on that but I have that too in in a certain area but I'll save that.

Okay. I just loved it. That that was, it's like late career thing was amazing. By the way, this was, the Shirk fight was also his best blood lick. In my opinion, there's, there's been more like aggressive and violent ones with going back and forth with it. But he licks the glove and then he goes back to Shirk.

He's crouched up against the cage, takes more blood off his face and licks it again. Yeah. Next level. The whole finishing to this thing. Go back and rewatch it if you're listening to this. Mario Yamasaki, I don't know what he's doing, but it's not referee. He's doing Mario Yamasaki is what he's doing. And I appreciate it.

Neesem walks off and starts calling the fight. And Mario Yamasaki isn't looking at BJ to be like, no, the fight's going on. He's not looking at Shirk. He's just kind of staring into the crowd. Uselessly while all this goes on. And BJ's team rushes the cage and says the fight's over. it's all just brilliant. I love this fight so much.

And that's why it made mine over the Stevenson one. Yeah, I can't, I can't quibble with it. I went Stevenson because to me that feels like the very clear beginning of peak, peak BJ. BJ is the mother-affing man in that to me. Yeah, clear is like is the very beginning of it. Especially with like you said, the Sean Shirk, you're dead. Like it all set up. That's the start of his big run.

But I can't. I can't add absolutely cannot quibble with the Sean Shirk. especially because back then, obviously we're all still fans back then. I hated Sean Shirk so much. I was so convinced that Sean Shirk was going to be the death of this lightweight division again before it even got back going that, like, I was so happy that night. I remember I so vividly remember being at my buddies watching that pay-per-view. I just being so happy.

I remember being nervous that Sean Shirk was going to make it through three rounds and then just lay on BJ. Same. Me too. I was like, this is, I can't. I'm, what if BJ's fat and his cardio doesn't work? That was the right of BJ, right? Like, you never knew which version of this guy you were going to get on the given night. So being a fan of him was terrified. I had the same feelings.

I wasn't personally, I didn't really have a big personal grudge on Shirk. It was just because BJ wanted to kill him. That was enough for me. I never even hated him. Can we briefly detour to two Sean Shirk related questions? The first is, what are your opinions on the month? shark as a nickname. I think it's amazing.

It's appropriate for the time. It's appropriate for the time. It felt perfect at the time that he had it for sure. What does it mean? Who can say? But I think it's an amazing nickname. For me, it always conjured up. What was the name of that cartoon with the sharks?

Oh. Street sharks. It conjured that to me. It conjured that for me. And that was a thing at the time. Hard same. He should have come to the. cage in rollerblades and then if only i had been around to tell shone shirk at the time come to the

cage and rollerblades so yeah i dug it two i dug it what the hell was he doing in that fight he just tries to box with him yeah that's a great question that's a great great question it's the question they're asking him commentary the whole time like i don't know what he's doing but this isn't going well he's getting pieced up to me he didn't even make bj work to me it always like a direct over correction to how people were perceiving him in his title run. How you were perceiving him? You were right there with me, I'm sure. That was the most boring title run in the history of title runs.

Like his fight against Florian and Franca back to back, did he throw two punches in that entire fight? It's literally the definition of lay and pray. I will admit, I also think it was a fundamental misunderstanding of like where BJ Penn is at because BJ Penn was a different dude at that at that time. Like, I think when he saw, Sean Chirk could have never been. Never.

When he saw BJ Penn go away, I'm sure he was like, okay, whatever. But when he came back, I think he didn't, I think he was slow to adapt to what the F he was like looking at in that cage at that time. Because it was just a different animal. It was just a completely different dude. Yeah. Sean Shirk also, before we continue, whenever I hear the phrase,

your arms are too short to box with God. God, I think of Sean Church. It's Shirk and Artem Lobov, right? Those are the two T-Rex fighters. Oh, man. Can we get that? Can we get that fight to happen? What's Sean Shirk up to these days?

Yeah, that's a good question. Make a call. All right, Shaheen, you've got one more then. And now I'm really interested to see where you go. I think maybe I have a thought, but confirm it for me. Tell me where you're closing your Mount Rushmore out with. It has to be Diego. Has to be Diego.

Just legendary performance. And, you know, same with the blood and just all of it, like the blood licking, just everything about that. That was the absolute peak. That was ultimately the end of the peak. And it was, that was just pure BJ whole way through from beginning to end. Another fight that I remember watching and being nervous because that entire stretch of BJ's run when you're a BJ fan is just like, it's a meme and it's a joke. But motivated BJ Penn was a real thing, not as a mythical. fighter but as a man is my fandom going to be punished today because bj decided to just

not show up for for camp for the last three months Diego was very much i didn't have any real concerns about kinney florian because it's kinney florian um even at the time i don't think i respected him all that much uh but Diego sanchise i remember i mean because he had had the the war with caro paris i was a demon man he had he was an absolute demon himself and so that was when I was like, this, is it going to show up? And I think, I think that's BJ's best performance. It does not make my Mount Rushmore, but I, it was the last one cut off. But I do think pillar to post, that's his best performance.

It made mine. I had it because it's his best performance. No, because I didn't have, um, Stevenson. I didn't have the Stevenson one. So I do have one more, but that one did make it for me. Okay. Best performance, you know, we talked about it, the roller coaster of like, which BJ shows up. Also, the fact that like Diego Sanchez is a cardio machine.

Like, you knew that Diego Sanchez was going to be on his ass for five rounds. There was no doubt he was going to be the guy who was going to be pushing BJ every single second, every single moment of that. And for a guy who who's training and preparation and cardio has been questioned throughout his career, that seems like the guy who's going to break him, right? that seems like the dude who if you had to pick a guy, that's the attributes you'd want. You'd want somebody who can wrestle, somebody who can grapple,

who can make it dirty, and who can push the pace, and BJ just took them apart from pillar to post for five rounds or four. I forget, when did the head can come up? And that was just a while it was the latest stoppage in a UFC championship fight. And that was exactly the thing, right,

was you contextualize Diego in that moment. Like, Diego is almost a punchline. now because he's so zany and he's just fought for so long and et cetera, et cetera. He's losing a lot. But like, he's been a crazy person for the entire of his career. Exactly. But Josh Fabia era didn't help. Didn't help.

Yes. Yes. Yeah. But you look at Diego back then in 2008, 2009, man, you had to put a stake in that guy's heart. You had to torture him alive. You had to cut off his head and he probably was still coming at you. Like he was scary on a different level than a lot of fighters.

And coming into this fight, his previous fight was literally the fight of the year against Clay Gwita. like it was it was just is that is that the one that they put in the hall yes yes the best fights in the history of the sport just for show someone showing you the depths they will drag themselves to continue to fight and that was what was going up against bj right like that was always the thing of just like i don't know bj can win when it gets messy and then we shall we saw what but by the way that's still true of diego now like it never left them like it's still true that's still dago his chin left you but they're

and arrested. The fighting skills left, but the heart, the, the, the, the, I'm going to continue to kill you, like, come after you, Michael Meyer style is just not gone. He's that guy forever, which is a tribute to him. For context, Diego was 21 and 2 at the time. His two losses were at Welterweight to Josh Koshchek and a splitie against John Fitch, two of the, at the time, three best welterweits in the world. Yeah.

Diego drops to lightweight, beats Joe Stevenson, Clay Gwita. and like this, I remember that being real. Like that was a very real thing. And like I said, that's why it was the last one cut off of mine. But Eric, what's your final one? So just real quick, just real quick, if I can mention BJ, first man to finish Diego Sanchez. That is of all the accolades you could put on his mantle piece,

like that is one of the most incredible. Not only finished, opened a chasm the size of a galaxy on his head. You could drive a truck through the hole he made in his head. Um, also with a head kick, which you know, weird. Not known for weird. Yeah. I believe, and this is pulling from memory, I believe there was a point where he said like,

yeah, I didn't practice that at all. Like, never trained that and just decided to do it. For a man as flexible as he was to never really throw head kicks, buddy, he found the time for it. It was great option. The boxing was always, was always home. Um, the last one for me was, uh, tough five finale, pen versus pulver, uh, two. Um,

the Lightway King is back, right? Like, to me, that was like, I'm here. Yeah, it was an execution, which, I mean, the revenge is nice, right? Like, the whole tough season was built on the idea of, like, this dude is the dude who beat BJ. Now BJ gets his revenge. But for me, it was just, like, confirming, hey, this is the guy. Don't forget. I'm here.

I'm also pissed at the UFC, right? Like, I'm still the dude. I'm also, I believe this was. the one where is this the one where he said the bjpen.com line i think it was i think this was the first i think it was the introduction to that he he was at odds with the ufc he was salty he was carmudgeonly he just got off this tough show he hates jens it just was the perfect amalgamation for me of like who bj pen was um and like you remind people like i'm still the i'm still the mother effing dude and that was important to me and the revenge on jens was obviously nice too because that were

where it was so deep. If you want to know what I think about, let's fight. Go to BJPen.com. Yeah. By the way. He gets out of it. Connor McGregor, the MacLife, launching your own media outlet. BJ Penn doing it first.

Like, BJ and Connor. BJ and Connor, always. Frankly, more fighters should have a gimmick for the post-fight speeches of that. It's so great. It's so endearing. Okay. Well, I knew I would be the only one with this one. but I cheated, but I cheated with purpose.

So we've covered my other ones. The last one I had on there. So what were your three, though? I had Uno, Hughes, and Shirk were three that I couldn't leave off. Eric, what was your four? Eric, where'd you end up with your four? Uno, Shirk, Hughes, and then the Pulver second fight. So like I said, I knew that I would be the only one on this,

but I feel like it needs to be said because we're not going to talk. talk about this enough. Guys, I don't know if you know this. BJ Penn won the goddamn world championships of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu three years into training. The first American to do so. Not a blue belt, not at Brown Belt, Black Appelopeil world champion three years into training, which is still boggles my mind. The first non-Brazilian, not even just American.

First non-Brazilian in the world. world. It is the older I get, the more I'm in, like, the more insane this is. And frankly, I also, I ultimately chose to say that I wanted to have this year. Because BJ Penn himself says the exact same thing. We've got it up on an NBA fighting. He told Ariel Helwani, our wonderful colleague on the MMA hour, that kind of looking back on his career, his greatest moments, like the thing he's most proud of wasn't anything he did

in MMA. it was doing that because that one that one is only aging better like only aging better to have just picked up this sport and then become the best dude in the friggin world at it in less time than it takes a kid to finish high school it's i don't think it can be overstated how insane that was so his victory over edson dene uh denies could be uh you can find it you can go watch it's not like, if you watch grappling these days, it feels quaint because it's obviously very old meta. It is not the new, new BJJ meta, but it's, I just wanted to make sure we talked about that a little bit because BJ calls it his, like, his greatest accomplishment. And there's

a very real argument that it is still more impressive than any of the other fights we've talked about giving the whole context of it. I tried to look it up. And obviously, you know, mileage may vary on some of this stuff, but I saw that like, Kyotera and Travis Stevens are like the two guys that seem to have been noted as getting black belts faster than BJ Penn, right? But yeah, but they're pretty modern era to have been that, that fast at that time,

just not possible, not heard of. And then to win black belt in the championship is just like, and thus the prodigy nickname, right? Like he was a one of one. He was the guy who, nobody had ever seen something like this before. It's just an incredible and insane accomplishment.

Just off the charts. To be able to finish the marathon faster than most people can become like a decent level blue belt or like a low level purple belt is frankly impossible. It took me five years to get my fucking purple belt. Yeah. Like it does, it does not happen. It does not make sense. And like you said, Eric, that's why he was the prodigy.

That's where the nickname came from. All of this came. easily to this man. There are very few fighters in MMA history whose nickname has been more appropriate than for BJ, frankly. It's spot on. It's spot on. And also, that's just cool.

I mean, it is also cool. He won the blue belt at like 98, the 99 went one brown and then black. That's not a thing. That doesn't make sense when you say that. It's fucking insane. This again cuts to the heart of BJ Penn, right? The guy who can do that. that then when he stumbles, people are like, well, what the F?

Because you're supposed to be infallible. You're supposed to be impossible to beat. You're supposed to be this thing because he's so good when he's on. Right. When he is good, he's incredible. But when he's bad, he looks bad. And people are going, what the hell happened? But yeah, he's, I mean, Phenom is another one for me, like Vitor.

Like that one just feels perfect and fitting and catchy and good. PJ and Vitor from that era felt like the guys for me that were like, yep, I get it. I get it. Yep. I always liked Evandelier always had the axe murder. Yeah, it's pretty good. He actually might have the best one as far as who it feels appropriate for, but the prodigy is right on up there. Boating for flight 246 to Toronto is delayed 50 minutes.

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into the fun ones to the rest of the business. The sad category. Up next. I'm not impressed by your performance award for the low light, the bad spot, the drop. And let's be honest, guys. I want to get out in front of this one. A lot of opportunity here.

Because the end of BJ's career not very good. BJ's post-fight career, not very ideal either. I picked one. I'm not going to speak on it beyond just to throw it out there because it was the only one that came to me. I think it's unassailably correct as far as my perspective goes. And it's getting knocked out by that dude in a bar fight.

That is the low light for BJPen as far as I'm concerned. Yeah, that's the pick. I'll read you. I'll read you my sentence. While it would be easy to point to losing bar fights in the streets of Hawaii here. I chose something else, but that was the preface. It was easy. And that is the moment when my BJ PIN fandom ended.

It's the nadir. It's a very crystallizing. Yeah, it was a very crystallizing moment because even during the downstretch, it's tough. But like, I remember Dennis Siever and Ryan Hall and Clay Guida. I remember each of those fights. And I remember the mental gymnastics that I would go through to say, what if this time? Just one-time dealer he comes in.

Clay Guida is a style matchup that he should be able to beat if he can do anything at all. Ryan Hall can only grapple and BJ can also grapple. He's just like he should be able to box like any. I remember vividly all of this. And if he fought tomorrow, maybe I'd still get sucked back in to be like, I promise you would.

I'm going to have my heartbroken. I promise you would. That's okay. That's the thing. you address with it. But at the minute that that happened, that all of the extracurricular stuff started going, and that fight happened,

it was just like, oh, I can let this go now, and I can move on to the next phase of my MMA fandom. Yeah, because I definitely identify with that. Go ahead, Sheen.

Because, like, I was in the building for Yai'er Rodriguez. And I remember the lead-up to Yai-R-R-R-Rodriguez. That's a tough building to be in. The lead-up to Yire-Rodriguez. Like, B.J. was always so such a great orator, right? Like, he would always hold court in a way that would be so compelling and he would suck you in

so quickly of just like, yeah. Underrated aspect of him, by the way. The charisma, I think almost is like low on the list, but he had something that I think people don't really know anymore. You give him 10 minutes. You'd be eaten out of the palm of his hand. Like, if you were in a crowd. Yeah.

And I remember that whole week. That's why he hit, though. I started that week being like, oh, man, like this is. a terrible fight. I don't know why they booked this. And by the end of the week, I was like, holy shit guy's like, BJ's gonna do this. He's like, he's coming back for Yair. He's featherweight. Like, this is great. And then that was sad. And then, you know, the Frankie thing coming out. And then that was sad. He just wants to beat Yai'er. Is that too much to ask? Coming out with the stance, the, the very awful insane stance with the third Frankie fight.

And like, that was sad. But all of that. that was sad and then you get to the bar fight and that that was the nadir because that was the moment this stopped being sad and started being like genuinely worrisome of like am I about to watch one of my favorite fighters ever just like kill himself in a very like gross and kind of slow painful way like that type of thing like that was that was the moment this ceased being just about like in cage results and sort of like oh Jesus like what is what have we reached with this. So I think we're all in agreement here on that, but I want to try and like bring it a little

bit back from that, which to me was the one you mentioned was the Frank Yeager fight. It was actually for me, the point where I was like, okay, this is, yeah, three. For one, like, they tried to like, they tried everything they could, right? This is what made it so sad for me and makes this my answer. They bring it back on tough, right? Had one of the most legendary tough seasons. Now he's coaching again. It's a guy he has a rivalry with.

He's going down to featherweight. All the elements of like, can BJ Penn drum it up one more time? We're all cooking in a perfect stew. It was all there to like, okay, this is going to be it. And then he comes out in that stance and gets absolutely obliterated. And it said to me in my head, I was thinking, the confidence is shot, right? No BJ Penn fight would he go into and just completely change up the style that has gotten him there, a million times. to beat everybody to slay giants.

He's coming out looking like a tie fighter on his tippy toes, not even doing it like really well, like a really bad approximation of it. It was so bad. And it just said to me like the confidence is gone and he can't be that guy anymore. And it kind of was like a little bit of a freeing experience if I'm being honest. Because then it lessened the feeling of like, can he do it one more time for those next sad ones?

Because I knew. I knew from that point forward, he could not. The answer was no. And by the way, I continue to touch on this. Come December, when Connor McGregor is stepping into a cage with Michael Chandler and everybody's going, can Connor summon it up one more time? It's going to be there. It's like the BJ Penn and the Connor McGregor, they have this way to get people to believe that I think is also another tie back to Connor McGregor.

It's just, there will always be the parallels and I always will think of Connor McGregor and BJ Penn is tied. but he has this thing where he makes you believe. That was the one where I was like, oh shit, I need to stop believing. Like, I can't. I can't do this anymore. Let me ask you guys something real quick. Let me ask you guys something real quick. I hope you, you probably have your Wikipedia pages or whatever typology up, so I hope you don't.

How long do you think that fight lasted that third Frankie Eager fight? Oh, fuck. Because in my head before I looked it up, it was like four rounds. Oh, in my head before I looked it up, it was too many. minutes, but it was very much not. It was three rounds. I don't know. In my head, Frankie just, I remember that being awful because it was a prolonged beating.

Distained. Because BJ is the toughest fucker that's ever lived. And you're not going to just dummy him. But I remember that being a, I think, Yai Year was pretty quick. Yai Year was quick. I remember Frankie just putting the wood to him. I have no idea. I think four.

14 minutes and 16 seconds. tab. Yeah. And that was the day after Widenman Machita and Rhonda. That was the Sunday. That was the day our heroes died. That was the Sunday after that event. So everyone who had covered all the events the whole week,

they're an extra day just to watch BJ Penn get slowly murdered. Yeah. Two things. Two things here, gentlemen. First, very briefly, can you imagine just how funny it would be if Connor comes out to fight Michael Chandler? By the way, that would probably be closer to Connor's successful stance than this new flat-footed boxer stance that he's been doing the last couple of fights. That would probably be closer to the karate stance.

It would be the best. Yeah. I would have so much fun. But those two guys, man, I'm telling you, it's there. If you just pay attention, it's there. Very much a parallel. The other thing to talk about this fight, because I think, I think, Rick, this is the correct fight. if you're not taking the bar fight low-hanging fruit.

I think this is for the reasons you said, though, I didn't. I still talked myself into Yai-eer. Yeah, I still talked myself in. This wasn't my jumping-off point. I was still in after with the Yair-your fight. That's what a reasonable person should have jumped off, but I'm an idiot. And that's well-known fact. I don't think we talk enough about this fight for the particular reason of

he dropped from Walterway to feather. way. He just shot past lightweight for no discernible reason. His losses at lightweight came to Frankie and then he bumped up to welterweight and then yeah, he fell short to Nick Diaz and Rory McDonald in competitive-ish fights Rory less so than Nick. Not bad to lose to those two dudes. And for BJ's mind to then go featherweight is the answer. I'm too small at welterweight. let me go to a whole new weight class. What an interesting individual he was. But this is what I think got people believing for a second is like,

the same way with like everybody's been begging Frankie to go down to bantam weight, right? Like it was just like you're too small. That's the problem. The problem is the size. It's not that you lost the fastball. It's not that you're not the guy anymore. It's that the size is too much. So let's send them down to featherweight.

And then we found out Frank Yeager, who's probably a bantam weight, the size wasn't too much. He was just cooked. One of the greatest ever was just cooked, and it was unfortunate. So, yeah, with all those factors to me, it hit me like a ton of bricks. Obviously, I was cautiously optimistic about the next couple of fights, right? Like, ah, yeah, year, is it too early for him? All those things.

But that was the time where I stopped believing he could do anything. That was the point where I was like, the hero, the guy who I thought was the hero of the story and the superhero just lost his mojo, you know? Because, and that's fair, though, because it wasn't sad up to that point. That was the first time it was sad. Because, like, the Roar, the Nick fight was competitive. And then the Roarie fight. He gassed out against Nick.

He won the first round. And then the Roary fight never felt super terrible to me, because to me that always in the moment was like, okay, like, BJ was never a welterweight, and now these welterweights are real welterweights, and that's sort of what we're seeing. Like, that makes sense to me that this would play out this way. The Frankie one was just.

the beginning of, you know, feeling really depressed about a lot of this. Fair, fair. Okay, next category. The, who the fuck is this guy award for the weirdest, most surprising opponent, BJ Penn ever faced in his career. I think there's only really one answer, but I'm open to more. But we've talked about it a lot. For me, again, if you have others, feel free.

Leoto Machita is the only appropriate answer. Only answer. this is the one I wanted to talk about this fight here because it's weirder I think than people even think about it. The people who maybe

don't know and are listening to this for the first time are like BJ Pin fought Leota Machita what the shit the con like all of it is even stranger I guess I guess that's fair one pin comes in a buck 90 and is

is visibly fat Like it's the worst condition. It's incredible. He's in in his career. Yeah. Yeah. Like who's 190? You can't put 190 on his frame.

He's visibly fat fighting and undefeated Leota Machita. A Leoto Machita who at this point already has a win over Rich Franklin. Yep. Like he's a real dude. He's, I'm sorry. He has a win over Stefan Bonner and Rich Franklin. So even though he's not the Leoto Machita, we're going to come to know at the, you know, later in life. He's still a real

dude, but they're doing it in K-1 Heroes, which is just an odd place for this fight to have happened and occurred. And then you watch the fight and like, I'm not here to tell you BJ Penn wins that fight. I'm here to tell you, BJ Penn

does better against Leota Machita than anybody until you get to Shogun. Yeah. Yeah. Correct. Like, it's competitive. There's a argument that fat BJ wins this fight by just by just kind of rushing but i just mean like screw it i'm gonna get in your house and start throwing and see what happens his legendary chin like at that point was one of his

best weapons you could not finish that dude you could not end that dude so he's just coming at you and it doesn't matter if he's got a pot belly because he's got good hands and he's got great jiu jihitsu and he's got an iron chin so what are you going to do he's going to get in your face he didn't try to win You're going to be in a fist fight and Leota Machita found himself in a fist fight. And it is still shocking to go and look at this and then think, okay, after this fight, Leota Machita is going to go on and absolutely dummy like Rashad Evans and Tiago Silva and Tito Ortiz. He's like unbelievable that BJ. This is the fight that crystallized.

my fandom in a lot of ways. Because when I would argue, I argued for years and years that BJ was the best fight in the world. And I think he was. I think certainly after the Hughes win, Hughes was a top pound-for-pound fighter. I think BJ has a very, very good claim

at that point in time to be the best fighter in the world. And this fight was always the thing I would go to me like, look, maybe somebody can beat BJ in a fist fight. You know, maybe Ginz Polver beat him in a fist fight or whatever. But if I have to pick one lightweight

to beat the most heavyweights possible. BJ Penn is the only lightweight who I think has a credible chance to go beat Tim Sylvia. Because if you told me in 06, BJ was going to fight Tim Sylvia, I'd be like, I mean, Tim should win. I'm not ruling it out that BJ finds the way to the back and gets the thing done. By the way, another echo to 2023, right? The pound for pound conversation is often a theory. theoretical thing, right? Sometimes we get a champion versus a champion,

but most of the time we're talking in, like, theoretical terms about, like, if this guy moved up to this weight, if things were equal, blah, blah, blah. BJ Penn is the dude who literally did it, who goes into a cage with dudes multiple weight classes. Like, I don't know if we said it, but Liotto was like, I think, 225. A catch weight. No, it was open weight. It was open weight.

You'd be as fat as you would. And just, yeah, I wouldn't have a catch weight. an open weight and just test it. Like, he's the dude who pound for pound wasn't an exercise. Pound for pound was his life. I'm going to go fight an MF or heavyweight. By the way, that's crazy. There's some additional context on top of this.

You ready for this? I don't know if you found this in the research. But there was an interview in 2014 that Brett Akamoto of ESPN spoke to Machita ahead of, it was maybe the I-year fight for BJ. I'm not sure about the timing. but he kind of was talking to the principles involved. 2014, he spoke to Machita. And he said,

2014, it would have been Frankie. Yeah, he was for 2017. BJ wanted to fight Kazeuki Fujita, who at the time was a heavyweight, like a true heavyweight. Machita is ultimately a light heavyweight, right? Like if we're thinking about where he naturally kind of ends up.

Fijita was an actual heavyweight. He wanted to fight him, but Fujita was training partners with Machita and was like, I don't really want this fight. You take it. So that's how that came about. BJ actually wanted to fight an even bigger dude. He wanted to fight a real heavyweight.

Like the dude, this is the part where you can't really explain to people who BJ Penn was other than to say it. I strongly consider putting this in my Mount Rushmore just because of how bonkers it is and like this encapsulating him so well. But this is where you get to the point where you start talking about BJ Penn. going yeah he was one of one he was truly one of one to the point that like nobody can do what what this man tried to do it's impossible because again this was a year after beating mad hughes like he was theoretically he had so much to lose with any fight and just to have that level of i do not care whatsoever about any of it's to just go in there with like fugita fans probably don't know who kazuuka fugita is like you could hold on

in the day, you could hit that man with a fire truck and he would still be standing. And many did. And he fought the best heavyweights at that time. Like, this is a real dude. And BJ was like, I want him. Yeah. And BJ's like, that's the guy. I want that guy.

I want that's what I want. And then he ends up with the future light heavyweight champ of the UFC anyway. A thing that you just remind me of Shaheen as you're going through this. He is coming off the Matt Hughes thing. also more importantly he's coming off beating dwayne ludwig which maybe contextually maybe maybe people don't really recognize i'm not here to say dwayne lug who was the best fighter in the world dwayne ludwig had just beaten jens pulver and so was the linear lightweight champion quickly too it was like 63 seconds like he worked through jens yeah so at this point in time bj pin is the

lineal lightweight and lineal welterweight champion of the world and is just like yo i'm gonna go fight this dude in K-1. It would be, to put it in modern-day terms, if you take Connor right after he wins the lightweight belt and is the double champion and is like, yo, I'm leaving the UFC because fuck them guys. I don't want to do that anymore. I'm going to go to Bellator and let's do Vadim Nimcov.

I got that guy. Like that is what happened in fucking 05 for this dude. And that's why when your favorite fighter says my favorite fighter is BJ Penn, that's why. Because of shit like this, insane, truly insane. Definition of pound for pound. He is the guy. The conversation begins and ends with BJ Penn. Like pound for pound was the thing that now it has become theoretical, but for him was real.

Like he was the dude. And it's that element that I think is the reason so many, like the thing. Like the theory The not wanting to overprotect whether it's a record or a legacy or whatever of the that's so pure right Like that's such a pure martial arts spirit of just like you know what man like all the rest of this doesn't matter

I'm just curious how I would do against you in a fight You want to fight? I just want to scrap baby Just see how it's that That doesn't exist that much anymore No it does not exist like it's why people love the Diaz brothers right Like, I don't care about my record. Give me 30 minutes and I'll beat you.

15 is probably not enough. BJ Penn's that same cloth. He's cut from that same cloth. He's of that same mold of like, I just want to fight, dude. I want to fight the best dudes in the world. And you know what? I'm probably going to beat them.

That's it. That's who BJ Penn is. In an era where, like, Kobe Covington can sit for a year or whoever is sitting for a year, squatting on rankings, squatting on their spot. Hey, I'm the number one contender already. I don't want to take a risk any of that. Like, that is, it is a different strategy.

sphere, uh, from where we came, right? Like that, I'm getting goosebumps. I'm so happy to be doing this right now. The Leono fight got me, got me feeling good. That's why we always put the fun category right after the sad category. You got to, you got to offset them.

And speaking of fun categories, next category, one of my personal favorites, the Fador sweater of absolute victory award. If you could have one piece of memorabilia from BJ Pins career, what would it be? I think there's one very clear answer for me. Uh,

Rick, let's start with you. What are you taking? I was torn. I had two. Oh, two. My first one was the jar of Vaseline from the GSP fight. Did I mention that I'm a BJ Penn fan? I don't know if I said that at the top. And my second one... Get the rubber guard going.

My second one was the rock from the GSP countdown when he was running the rock underwater. Just that boulder in my backyard. Oh, that's a good one. I miss those countdowns, man. those countdowns were so good. The rock running is just incredible. For like a real kind of answer,

like I always thought his- Jump out of a pool, guys, you remember? I mean, it is impressive. Truly, that is actually a pretty impressive athletic fee. For like a real-ish answer, like, the gloves that he licked or like he always had those sick Ruka shorts, one of those, but like I would go there. The Rooka shorts are my answer.

The Blackout shorts are- Yeah. That's it. There are a couple of fighters who've had iconic shorts that are pretty good, but BJs have always been my favorite because they, I mean, they speak to who he is, but they're very unique. And like, when I think of the tragedy that is the UFC uniform, I think of losing things like BJ and the black bow shorts. It's so simple, but it's so sick. It's just like, it's not overdoing it, not overthinking it. Also, like, you know, not a ton of sponsors, right?

It's kind of just like streamlined. BJPIN.com on his ass. Exactly. And Ruka and partnership of Ruka, who again, you know, the money, the business acumen, the things BJPen, again alluding to what's to come. Like the dude was ahead of it. The dude was ahead of it. And that's another example.

It's one of the four pairs of shorts that will just forever be burned in my brain with that era. Give me the other three. Hit me. Fador and the whitey tides? No, Andrews. Crow cop. Well, I'm thinking UFC because other players is still, you know, you can be. yourself.

Anderson, Tito, Chuck. Sure. So, Chuck, for sure. Tito, yeah. I don't ever think of Tito, but when you say Tito, I can immediately picture it. I can immediately picture Tito when you say it, but it's not one that naturally comes to me. But for the record, Rick, the rock is also a very real thing that you could have. And I would love to have a rock on my shelf and be like, why do you have a giant stone?

because one time DJ Penn carried it in the water. I mean, I'm sure Phil Nurse has that thing of Vaseline somewhere too. We could dig that out. I don't know. They probably had to use it for other fights. Next category. I have one other memorabilia. Oh, you've got another one.

I also had black belt shorts, Sean shirt gloves. Those are the two. But I think realistically, one that I would actually get used out of, and I would still very much wear right now. the ultimate fighter five jersey a team pen a team pen tough five jersey that blue jersey yeah

that blue I'd go play pickup in that for sure I'm going to the I would totally go to the gym and a team pen I have a pen tough jersey I'm not like a big jersey guy but I have a pen tough jersey from the other season the Frankie season it was like also like light blue

or something like that but those are cool I'm with that I that's a good one I support that next category we've We've renamed it. We've renamed it in BJ Penn's honor. I forget what I used to have this category named as. But we renamed this as the BJPen Cardio Award for Fighter Flaws.

So downsides to BJPen or where did he come up short. And as the category may give away, cardio was always an issue. I would argue that it was less of an actual issue and more of a more of an internet talking point. but there is certainly a trend in his career of not finishing fights nearly as strongly as he begins them but for y'all what do you have as far as the flaws the nitpicks of b jpen's career i think it's going to be one of two things right it's going to be the cardio which you know i think you're right it was overdone and over mythologized but like you look at the gs the first gsp fight and he just clearly like he won that fight in my opinion or or came close enough and

just ran out of gas. Later in his career, he ran out of gas. But for me, it's the motivation, right? Like, if he was a more dedicated and motivated athlete,

would he have done better? But it harkens back to the conversation we had at the very beginning, which is, would he be BJ Penn if he was that guy. And I'm not convinced he would. So I, that's the flaw, certainly is the motivation.

But, like, if you ask me the secondary question is, like, would I fix his flaw? I'd probably be like, nah, like let it ride.

It was a good ride. I enjoyed it when it was good. So I'd keep it as is. But that's the flaw. Those are the two flaws. The cardio and the motivation. And the cardio is only because of the motivation. You didn't get on the fucking treadmill and do what he needed to do and do his roadwork.

He's running the rock under the water instead of preparing for George St. Pierre. So those I feel like are the obvious ones. I had similar with motivation. I almost framed it differently. And I think that speaks to who BJ was and how we think of them. because I had it framed as ambition. His ambition was, his ambition. That is different framing, but yeah.

Always sort of outshone his dedication, which, it's just motivation ultimately, but like he was always one step ahead of where he should have been, like looking to the next thing or thinking about the next thing while the actual thing is in front of them. And to me, that typifies really who this guy was. Also, obviously overstayed infinitely longer than he should have. but yeah you know sometimes you got to get retirement beat into you 40 different time i'm gonna raise yeah i'm gonna raise this here because i want to talk about it and this seems like a good place is any

and uh rick as a as a big bj fan i i got to know because i've been thinking about this because i think the cardio narrative as i sort of mentioned a little bit overblown and i my theory is that it's largely overblown because of one fight, and it's as a backlash to admittedly awful BJ Penn fans, because let's be honest, a lot of fan bases out there are trash these days. Like Connor fans, they're tough hang. BJ fans in the mid-2000s, of which I numbered, could be a tough hang on the message boards. Y'all were the original. Y'all were the original.

Honestly, the parallels never cease. I think the cardio thing really came about, I mean, there were some reasons. I think it came about because of the Matt Hughes two fight and as a as a blowback to the stalwart BJ fan saying, no, his cardio is fine. Matt Hughes broke his rib and that's what happened. So, Eric, the question is, do you believe that Matt Hughes broke BJ's rib or do you think he just got tired? Oh, boy. Is that Matt Hughes, is that Matt Hughes loss on BJ's motivation, or is it a freak occurrence and an injury that happened? I like this.

This is really putting me to the test here. This is really putting me to the test here. It's hard because I know what I believed at the time, right? I, again, this is a safe space. I am an unabashed BJ fan, and I definitely said some probably dumb things on the internet in his defense in the mid-2000. This is really like a reckoning. Like, am I willing to go back and reassess what I thought or am I willing to just say, yeah. Follow your heart.

He definitely heard his rib. Follow your heart. I mean, that's how I felt. I'm going to stick to it. Yes. I think that is what happened. I truly believe that is what happened. I love it because that was my position forever as like BJ, BJ didn't lose really.

Like, BJ should have beaten GSP and Matt Hughes. it was a freak accident. And as I went back and watched it was like, I don't, on the benefit of hindsight and maybe being a little removed was like, just kind of looks like Matt beats him up. And PJ's not really here for this one. So I love your commitment to it, Eric. I'm going to stick to it until, until I go to the grave. And for those listening who weren't there, this was a very serious forum argument in 06 of

the validity of Matt Hughes's win. I'm sure. you can dig up a hundred page UG thread of people just going back and forth on this. Just screaming at each other into the void. The next category, also renamed for the listeners, one of you pitched this as a title for this award, the Alternate Universe Award, which I've been trying to find a name for. Somebody pitched it, and I cannot find who it was in my mention.

So if you were the one, you know who you are, and reach back out, and I'll give you a shout out next time around. the TJ Grant Alternative Universe Award so the biggest what if the sliding doors moment of BJ's pen's career I'm going to lead us off again because I think that there's one very clear one

and for me it's the one that I spend the most time thinking about and Shaheen we argued or we mentioned earlier about the BJ Penn as the lightweight goat argument and I think that this is the crux of it

because it is what if instead of doing all the other stuff, he just stuck around and fought at 155 the whole time. And I'm leading this off by saying, we've kind of touched on it, and I agree, if he does that, we remember him very differently. He probably matters less. If he does that, I don't know that he becomes as significant a figure in the history of the sport, and certainly not as beloved of a figure. But for me, if you go back look at it from 04 until the Frankie loss in 2010. The second one, not counting on the first one, because he very clearly won that fight. If you don't believe me, you're bozo. That's six years where

he's the best lightweight on the planet. And it's pretty unassailable. He is, by definition, has taken the lineal title from Dwayne Ludwig, and he holds it all the way up through until Frankie beats him at UFC 112. For that six years, if he fights twice a year, he's, he, he He is, instead of currently having a tie for the most U.S.C. Lightway title defenses with a bunch of other people, Benson, Frankie, Habib, it is his and his alone because he will have maybe a rematch with Dean Thomas. You know, he will have stacked up theoretically in this world. What does that world look like to me is the biggest what if? How is he remembered?

Is he remembered as the unequivocal lightweight goat, one of the five best fighters of all time? Is he as beloved? Or does he fall into a Jose Aldo-esque sort of very clearly an amazing fighter who the real ones know, but a lot of other people just look and are like, well, Conner, 13 seconds, not very good. I spend so much time thinking about this particular question, frankly. Yeah, it's like a variation on like, what if the UFC didn't dismantle lightweight, right? Like, what if that just extends? What if BJ is just there, kicking butt?

What if he doesn't get robbed with a draw against Calhouno? Yeah. But we have to acknowledge, right? Then the UFC is like, eh, we don't really want lightweight anymore after that, right? That's what happens at that point. They're like, shudder this thing. We're not really interested. And then now BJ's kind of a man without a home.

But I think, you know, it's, man. It's a hard hypothetical because you have to kind of like, assume things about a guy whose motivation was always one of his biggest questions, right? Like, even if he is just, like, fighting competitively at lightweight during this time,

is he motivated? Is he interested in chasing something there? Like, it's always going to be the question. So it's hard. Like, I don't even know if given that extra time and given those fights, what shape you would be in. It could have potentially hurt his legacy, right?

Like it's not necessarily guaranteed that like in that time frame he's just like going out there and starching everybody. Although I do believe he was by far the best guy and I think he would have. But like maybe he shows up and isn't motivated one time. And all of a sudden the legacy takes a hit and it detours him from the future stuff. It's hard. It's a weird spot for him specifically, I feel like. That's the thing. That's the thing.

It's so impossible to parse and strip away a scenario like that. you're taking away everything that makes BJ BJ, right? You're essentially putting him as, what, Habib, or somebody who's just going to be this ultra-focused guy who's going to come out here and give it his all every time and defend this title and over and over and over, and he's going to assumedly win every time. And I just don't, I don't, I can't fathom that reality

because that is so deeply different than who this man is to his core. It's like asking what if Nick Diaz had, you know, really playing ball his entire career. It's just like not, it's so difficult to parse that out. What if Nick Diaz didn't smoke weed? Yeah, like, it's so integral to his character and who he is and who he became and like who we remember him as that like, I don't know what a BJ that doesn't fight Leoto just because is or a BJ that doesn't go up to fight Matt Hughes because he's just kind of interested to see if he could do it.

Like, that doesn't, I don't actually understand what that means. You can't assume anything with him. You can't, there is no consistency. There is no like, yeah, you just throw him in there and he's beating all these guys. You can't, you could never do it. It's just an impossible thing. But also what makes him so charismatic and mysterious and attractive as an athlete and as a fighter. Like that uncertainty is why you're tuning in every single goddamn time that BJ Penn fights.

Even when, even when the ride is over, you're convincing yourself that maybe he can do it one more time. He's just that guy. I will say to play out your scenario, Jed, I think in that world, in this alternate universe, BJ wins a lot, but I think he also loses several times. And I think that he is viewed in a way that is so much, that lessens his impact to such a degree that we are very much not having the most influential type of conversation to him. Because that element of wanting to take chances, wanting to. sort of break the mold do different things in the way the rest of the sport occupying.

So here's the question. Because I agree a thousand percent. If he does that, he's not, he's not our BJ, right? He's not that guy. He's not one of the most influential fighters. The question is, because I'm willing to even agree that he probably does lose. He probably doesn't go seven years without taking L. At some point.

I mean, he lost the chance pulver, you know? Like, yeah. He was not infallible. Exactly. So he probably doesn't go that way. But how do we talked at the outset of the show of, you know, the gulf between kind of the perception between generations on BJ. How much closer is that gulf if he sticks around and at least on paper, even if the new fans don't know what it means, they can look back on paper and say, he's got six lightweight title defenses over the span of four years, you know? He won the belt over Kao Uno.

He avenged the Jenspover loss at one point. He doesn't. In this world, he won't get the Matt Hughes win because he won't move up probably. He won't have Takenori Gomi, which is one of his better wins. But he's got four or five. Yeah. Let me ask you, let me flip that around. How do you think people now, new fans, or even Connor fans, which are not new fans at this point, right?

Those are people who are five minutes. It's been almost 10 years. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I undershot that. How do you think they view Randy Couture? I was thinking Tito Ortiz. I was thinking Tito Ortiz when you were saying that.

Yeah. Because I think Randy is a good parallel to B.J. currently. I don't think they think anything of those guys. I thought Tito. I thought Tito. I think Tito is a good one. The dominant guy. The dominant guy.

And it didn't matter how many title defenses he had because people just forgot. People just forgot who he was. I think that he maybe BJ would be thought of in that way. but being thought of in that way means not being thought of at all. And by the way, this is, I feel like the crux of what we've been discussing the whole time, which is like he could have maybe been that dude, but he wasn't that dude. And that's why we love him. We love him because he took this path, because he did things different, because he wasn't

that guy. Because honestly, how boring would that be? Like, he took the path that. Of most resistance? Of most resistance at all times. He put his head through the wall every single time. And that just, it hardened my fandom of him. It's why he has such a rabid fan base because you want to come to the defense of this guy to say, well, X, Y, Z thing is Y, right?

Because if he just did it this way, he would have been amazing. You can assume those things or you can push those aside. But because he took the path of most resistance, because he always went up against it, because he was always fighting up, you want to, you want to, you want to. want to root for that guy and you want to defend that guy and you want to you want to make the case for that guy if it was that more that more like a linear path i feel like you lose some of it i feel like you lose some of that i've just the question i ultimately am trying to get to the heart how would his resume look because it would look good how many wins does his resume need for it for it to outstrip that in certain circles unfortunately i think there's no number

i just think the errors are too divided that this guy is never going to get a fair shake in the modern times. But he's one of those ones that you sit somebody down, like the old boxing footage. Like, he's not Muhammad Ali, right? But people talk about Muhammad Ali in a context that younger generations can't understand. BJPen is one of those that you need to sit somebody down

and be like, check this guy out, see this guy. Don't just listen to like what people talk about, but actually watch what this guy is. And then he translates. And then he translates. translates. Okay. Enough on my topics.

Do you all have any for the TJ Grand Alternate Universe? I've got a few. My list is long. But that's BJ. There was so many crossroads. What if GSP did in Greece? By the way, did I mention I'm a BJ Penn fan? I just wanted to get that out at the top.

The GSP is slander. I am not here for this. Okay, here's a real one. It's a little bit tongue-in-cheek, but it's also kind of real. what if Doug Crosby, Saude de Mato, and Andy Roberts didn't absolutely botch

the UFC 112 scorecards? What if, what if I wrote, I wrote a think piece on this where I played it out and it's not as fun as you think it is, but it's, it's the best world.

Frankie, I don't, he doesn't get another crack. No way. He doesn't get an immediate one. The next, because I did this once for a piece. It wasn't for me if I know,

I'm interested. Tell me. Somewhere else. I thought, I played it all the, way out and the answer was Frankie doesn't get an immediate rematch but he's probably like one away

so there's two timelines one Jim Miller gets his title shot because the way the timelines are working out Jim Miller ends up he's on the eight fight win streak and it is probably Jim Miller is the guy who gets a title fight instead of because instead of doing the rematch

and then it being gray Jim probably just slots in and you presume the BJ wins that fight stylistically it seems beneficial for him. After that, then he's either going to get Gray Maynard, if Frankie has won a fight, he gets a rematch with Frankie. He would lose a rematch with Frankie. The gray would be interesting because I know they trained together. Obviously, BJ was Gray's coach on tough. There's a world where Gray doesn't take the fight as a result of that. I don't know entirely how that would play out.

Even if so, I would still largely think at the time, BJ Penn fan, obviously, that that's a beneficial win for him. And at which point, you're either getting Frankie or Benson Henderson after either Frankie or Gray. And Bindo's probably, you feel like Bendo's probably not beat him. Anthony Pettis, it wouldn't be Benson. It wouldn't be Benson. Benson only got the shot before Pettus because that whole situation with Frankie and Gray was

so weird that they had to do another one. So it actually would have been Pettus. Yeah, but Pettis takes the L to Clay Gwit. which is why Bendo ends up getting the first one there. Pettis only has to fight Clay Guida because he cannot fight Frankie because Frankie has to fight in this trilogy. Well, maybe that's right. Actually, you might be right, but...

Either way, my answer was he gets two more title defenses before losing. I think Pettus or Beno beats him. I think Prime Gray beats him, frankly. I think that's an argument. That's an argument and a tougher call, but I think it's fair to say, like, Once we're in the Frankie Bendo Pettus era, the ride's coming to an end, right? I think we could all agree on that.

I think any of those three, I would feel very confident, particularly what we know in hindsight. And that's where I played it out, whereas he was in the scenario, it was likely he was getting Jim Miller and beating Jim Miller. And then he was getting Gray Maynard and I thought beating Gray Maynard and then losing to Petis Bendo or Frankie if Frankie, you know, got back. And we also in that world lose the legendary UG Ruka, Hilo Boy, Zomp. Posts from Doug Crosby. I'm not sure I want to part with that. I, I, I don't want to lose that. One of the greatest posts ever.

And then the, you know, the obvious like, what if he trained differently? What if Marinovich came into his life earlier or whatever? You know, I think most people. Yeah. I think most people think of that as the best pairing, right? It was when he was with Marinovich, the shape and the condition and the motivation was all there. So, you know, what does that look like? firing Marinovich was such a tough, tough look.

Like, yeah. This is the guy that you've told you've sold your rebrand around being like, they keep me serious and in shape. And then you fire him. It's like, cool, we're not getting good BJ anymore. Got it. Yeah. Tough scenes.

Sometimes it is that simple. Gene, you got anything here? I had the same in terms of what if, how does the Frankie, if the Frankie situation turns out differently, how does this all play out? But I think we played that out pretty well. What's up, Frank? I know you're about it.

I was just going to say, by the way, like, Frankie Edgar, I don't think we're going to touch on this, which is very weird, because Frankie Edgar, like, the rivalry between those two is probably one of BJ's most notable or, like, most interesting. Obviously, Hughes is probably number one, but behind that, it's Frankie. Somebody who I despised at the time, and then because of how this has played out, I'm, like, one of the biggest Frankie Edgar fans in the entire universe. That's different in fandom right there, because I,

I hate Frankie to this day. I love him now. I love him. Frankie has been the foil to BJ and Josie Aldo, two of my three favorite fighters of all time. I could see that. I could see that. And watching Josie Aldo teach that man a lesson and how to box twice was the happy. I never forgave Frankie for this one.

I wasn't even mad when Frankie got robbed by Bendo. He also didn't as I realized. He didn't get robbed by Bendo. We need to stop saying that. He did. No, when we did the Bindo episode. He absolutely did not. When I went back and rewatched was like, oh, he didn't get robbed.

But at the time, I thought he did get robbed. Benson won that fight. If you watched that today with clear eyes, Benson won that fight. For sure. I watched it in a while, but I thought Frankie. Still hate Frankie to this day. I love him now. Because he's also, what it was was it was too close to home at the time.

But now that I've had some separation, now the years have gone on, he's B.J. Penn. He's freaking BJ Penn. He's the guy who was too, he just wanted to scrap. He was too small for the weight class and didn't give an F. and just wanted to scrap with dudes who were the best in the world. That spirit to me was the thing that I can now see clearly in hindsight. But at the time, yeah, I wanted his head on a pike, obviously. But yeah, I've become a fan.

It's hard to call it a rivalry when it's 03, right? Well, he won the first fight. Let's just call it. I understand. I get, I'm with you. But you understand what I'm saying. I do. The part of a BJ pin fandom is recognizing the wins and losses are these ephemeral. ideas, they're not really what happened.

It's the same with being a Diaz fan. I think the wins. The wins count, but the losses don't count. That's how we're doing it. Well, it's because he got robbed, like, several times by the fake injury to Matthews. You know? Yes, philosophically. Yes, I agree.

I agree. Let's talk about it. The hospital. I went to the bar. I know who won the fight. His face was not looking good. His face was not looking good. What are you got?

My only alternate universe is really just one to save us from the excessive sadness that we suffered, which was, what if BJ retires after? He would have never retired after John Fitch. He would have never done it because John Fitch was like the number two welterweight in the world at that time. And that was an insanely competitive fight. And like, you could have never convinced him. But the Nick D is won after that. He obviously did retire for a while.

What if he had just stayed away? how differently is he considered by people of that era, right, of that generation? Is the way that BJ Penn is viewed historically? Obviously, it is markedly improved if he does not fight again after that Nick Diaz fight. And that, that to me is the only one other one that I could come over with. Because that's, because anytime you're arguing for BJ Penn, that is the immediate uphill battle that you're having to fight, which is the end of the career stuff. It's never even crossed my mind, and that's a very good answer. answer. Never even crossed my mind because I'm just like so desensitized. I'm so numb to the idea of like,

yeah, he would have just called it. You know, like, I'm numb. I can't even like fathom it. But that's, that's a great answer. It's a great answer. My, my point is always after the third Frankie fight because he takes several years off before the weird return. And so like he would have never retired in any of those points. I think you could have made him retire after Frankie. I think if The right people are just like, dude, no. Just let it, let it be. Here's an interesting hypothetical. If we shifted his career back, and obviously that comes with a lot of implications,

but if we shifted his career back, would maybe he have stopped and just been like a boxer at that point? Like with the prominence of how we're seeing like careers go, would him, Anderson Silva, guys like that. As to Frankie, he would be. Oh, would they just be boxers? He would be boxing Jake Paul after the Frankie roll. Exactly. BJ Penn versus Wings of Destiny, open weight. Let's just go.

Come on. BJ would have been great in the influencer boxing scene because he could box. But also he's the guy who like, he was charismatic. Yeah. I don't need UFC. And he was doing that before people actually really didn't need UFC. He didn't need UFC. I'm taking my ball and go in a different direction.

He could have, he could have been that guy who was doing that. That's, that's where I would have seen it. He was just a little, he was a little too soon for this era. Just imagine. He literally sued the UFC to say, hey, y'all can't annoy another welterweight champion, And despite the fact that I kind of just bailed on you guys. Yep. Not even kind of, totally just bailed on him.

Can you imagine the influencer boxing scene, Teddy Atlas being like, BJ Penn's the best boxer in mixed martial arts? He's the soft poppy. Yeah, obviously he can beat up Jake Paul. It would be great. Great, great, great. With Amex Platinum, $400 in annual credits for travel and dining means you not only satisfy your travel bug, but your taste buds too. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Conditions apply.

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Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. We're getting a bit long. So let's move on to, I had a bit of trouble with this next award,

the Habib Tony Award for Fight That Never Happened, but you wanted to see. I came up with two answers. I think one of them's real, but it took me a while to get to it. And one is just a personal one that I want. But let's start with y'all. Shaheen, why don't we lead with you?

You got any fights that never happened? Yeah, of course. I think it's the same one that all of us will probably say, Frank Yeager for. No. No. The minimum weight fight. Yeah, there we go.

I mean, like, let's just do light heavy weight. Let's just do light heavyweight. I mean, come on. Open weight. No, I mean, to me,

it just, there were a couple that stick out of just like, sort of the other lightweights of that era who were outside of the promotion, right? The Iokies, Eddie Alias. Alvarez, Gilbert Melendez.

Those were sort of the three that immediately jumped to mind. But as I sit there thinking about it, I ultimately landed on one. And it's probably extremely niche. But just from my mind, I really would have loved to have seen it. And that's BJ Penn versus Prime Hellboy. Oh, nobody has any idea. Look, nobody listening to this has any idea of who you're talking about. Yeah.

Talk about lost to history. We got to do a Hellboy. We got to do a Hellboy episode. That's going to be fun. Dude, there was like a three-year stretch for that dude was actual hell on wheels. Get that guy, like, right around the time of, like, the dream tournament when he beats Aoki and B.J. sort of pressed into, like, that would have just in. I mean, that's a real fun fight. That's way more fun than either the ones I have. I had those same three. You mentioned Gilbert Melendez. I didn't have him, but obviously, yes, but I had Aoki Alvarez and Hansen.

you know it's just those guys who Ayoki Alvarez Hanson let's go Ray I thought about Kawajiri as well but I was like you know of the three these are probably the three that I want to see like Kawajiri yeah I didn't that was the least interesting so I was like I'll skip that but it was those three

and then there's like the fantasy time machine with hubby that that's where my head because these were just like out of circumstance right we didn't get these fights because out of circumstance like there wasn't like a matchup that I was like I must see this matchup the only one that came to mind for me was I'd love to see a prime

BJ Penn have taken on Habib because that feels like the Oh yeah I don't think you would Rick I would extraordinarily depressing I would I have Habib on my list but there's a big

caveat to it because Rick I it would not be a good time for us bud like it just would be a bad time just Time versus Prime would not be a good time. That's why I don't have it there as a fight because I'm pretty sure how that fight would go.

I would love, even still to this day, it would be pretty interested to just watch them train together or grapple where Habib's not really trying to hurt him, but just see the chain wrestling going against the flexibility, the dexterity that BJ's known for and sort of how that would all shake out. But I don't need to see them fight. I think we know with the time machine what happens.

there. The one I had, I think Eddie Alvarez would have been fun for sure. I didn't even think of Hansen, but that's probably the most fun. I went for the one that people wanted that never happened that I thought I was absolutely certain what would go on, but maybe given what Ryan Hall did that that is different, the Shinyaoki fight. There was a stretch where Ioki was the number too lightweight in the world behind BJ and that was the talk that the foreign boys wanted to know what would happen. I always thought B did kill him, but this is the thing. We all three basically had the same answer, except

Shaheen and I added Hansen. Were they like, yeah, it's a great fight. But were they like, I can't go on without seeing them? I don't feel like we really missed anything in his career that it was like, we missed it. We didn't get it. I think he's the only one that had a big, people wanted that fight

for a stretch. Yeah. And then Eddie kind of came up, right? And then Eddie killed him. Eddie killed them and then it was like, I want to see Eddie. But I wasn't like, I need, like, I'm dying. I didn't see Eddie. Because to be honest, like, there was eras where they kind of overlapped and it could have happened.

It wasn't an impossibility, but it was never the fight for me that I was like, I'm dying. It wasn't, basically, the Tony Habib. It wasn't Tony and Habib for me, is how I'll put it. But ultimately, that to me speaks of the adventurousness of BJ Penn, right? Like, that dude found the fights. Any of the fights that we would have mentioned, he found it. He tracked it down. Gave us fights I never would have thought.

Yeah. Couldn't even fathom. Fantastic. Next category, the Brad Ims Award for the weird statistic. So fun with stats on this one, named after Brad Ims, the heavyweight hillbilly heartthrob, who wants one back-to-back fights by Gogolpola, which is still one of the funniest things that's ever happened in the sport to me. I got two.

I got nothing. So I'm counting on you. I got zero. I had the black belt thing, and like we talked about that extensively. I got nothing. I got zero. Okay, Shaheen, what's your one? I also had the black belt thing, but we don't even need to mention that.

My one, and this is maybe like a fake stat, but it's a stat in 2023, you know? Like this is a very 20, 23 style stat. And again, it speaks to the fact that this dude, the way his career played out was so unlike most fighters ever. in the fact that he was just thrown immediately to the fire and then lived in the fire for the rest of the career. So for my style, it was the number of opponents BJ Penn fought

who do not have their own Wikipedia page. Oh, that's a great one. It's got to be like zero. One, his first fight ever. Joey Gilbert? Yeah, that makes sense. That's it. And from then on, it is...

Also, someone do Joey Gilbert a solid. The man fought in the UFC. Let him have his day. Right. Come on. But at that point, after Joey Gilbert, we're out to the races, and BJ never takes a step back again, pretty much, for the end, until the end of his career. That's a good one. So I've got two, and we've touched on both. Well, we've really touched on one. And it's the seven-fight losing streak. I can't confirm this, but I did my best to confirm it. Pretty sure it's the longest in UFC history.

It is possible that somebody has equaled it out, and certainly lots of people have five and six is, but I believe seven is. It is. Believe seven is the longest losing streak in UFC history, which speaks to the respect that the man gets, I guess. And also has a very fun quote for BJ of, I'm not going out there and getting knocked unconscious, which just is so sad when that's the thing you're holding on to when you've lost seven fights in a row. On the other side of the coin,

there are dudes who go out there and do get knocked unconscious. So it's kind of like, yeah. Tony, Tony, how are we doing? Yeah, you're a rod. is kind of knocked him unconscious, but we're not. And yeah, yeah, yeah. The other one, I didn't even sort of verify this other than that I know that this did happen. It's on his Wikipedia page says this as if it's a fact.

And so I'm taking it as gospel. The only combatant to record stoppage victories in each of the available five rounds in championship bouts. So he has a finish in the first check. third, fourth, and fifth, and is the only person who have done that. Wow. I cannot confirm that that is true or not. But Wikipedia has it

under his list of accomplishments and I can confirm that he does have stopages in each of those. When did he get the last of those? Like, what's the latest one in that? I assume that five, Diego Sanchez is the last of them because he gets Diego in five. He beats King in the

fourth round. He beats Shirk in the third. He beats Stevenson in the second and he beats Hughes in the first. So I mean, actually, he actually escalates. Yeah. He escalates because he goes, Hughes 1, Stevenson, 2, Shirk 3, Florian 4, St.S. 5. Even if he's not the only, he's got to be the first, just based on the timing of it.

Yeah. Like, there's no way he's not the first, which, I mean, that's, that's badass. That's a great one. It's super, it's exactly the ideal of this category. Wow. What a great one. Kind of cool stat. What an awesome one.

Yeah. Whatever put that up on Wikipedia. Great job. Yeah, good work to that editor. A couple categories we wind down now. The Sean Ferris Award for actor who should play them in a movie, named after Sean Ferris, the actor who plays Jake Tyler in the cinematic masterpiece. Never Backed Down.

Did anyone have a good one for this one? I have one. I don't think it's good. I have like a bad one that I don't think about. This one was really hard. This category can be hit or miss. Sometimes this category is. good. AK is the champion of this

category, but pretty tough. Who'd you come to? There's not a lot of Hawaiian actors who are not like incredibly handsome. Like all of the Hawaii, yeah, all of them have a fat face. Yeah.

Are like chiseled muscle men. Like I'm not looking for that right now. They're like Samoans and they're too fat so you can't do it. It's tough. And so like I tried to go Korean heritage and that's tough. I got one. his name is Ki-Hong Lee

and you can Google him at the moment and if I mispronounce that I apologize he's the kid in Maze Runner if you ever saw the Maze Runner movies he's the he's not the main character the idiot white kid he's that dude's friend who's cool and kind of has some similar

facial structures going on there and he's just young enough to kind of pull it off but I really struggled on this one yeah same I mean for me this felt like a young rock situation where you just got to do a casting call for some Pacific Islanders. Yeah, well, the size might be a little, and the, and the abs might be a little different. Magic, we can work the movie magic, but I'm just thinking you got to do a casting call for

like Pacific Islanders and just find a guy. Because there's really not like a beat, there's not really, you wouldn't see BJ Penn in a movie. Let's, let's call it what it is. Like, you, they don't look like him. So it'd be hard. It's easy to find a Carlos Condit standard. Yeah. A lot harder to find a BJ Penn.

I had the only one I could even remotely come up with and again, I don't know that I feel great about it, is Jacob Battalon, Batalon. How do you spell that? Oh, I got it. You'll know it as Ned in the Spider-Man movies. Yeah. So all the MCU stuff, he's Ned.

If he loses some weight. He's going to have to get on the... Yeah, he would have to lose quite a lot of weight. But that's all I got. I can accept it. Kind of has the fat face, you know. Gets on the Chris Pratt. superhero diet.

I could see it. Let's just, let's just throw BJ in there. Let him, let him act his own movie. I'm relatively confident BJ would be a terrible actor. I think he's been in,

like, find out, baby. I think he's been in some stuff. I think he's probably been in like some of those bad action movies, but maybe as BJ Penn. Do you think he can, he has been in stuff?

He's been an episode of Hawaii 5-0. Look at that. Is he BJ Penn or is he somebody else? No, he's a Kapu member. Okay, great. The rest of it, he's in, himself in everything else.

But look, I'm here for BJ PIN in the Fast and the Furious franchise. That's all I'm saying. Let's go. Let's go. We need to get this man in there. How many different elements in my life am I going to get sucked into fast and furious

conversations from you people? Because we were talking about it today. Listen, I understand. Listen, we're having a conversation. This is about family right now. Right? This is tight. This is family.

So I get it. We had an editorial meeting today for the listeners. and 30 minutes of the editorial meeting took place discussing Fast and Furious. Wasn't even my choice, guys. I didn't bring it up this time. We want to be clear on that. We got three categories left and we need to get to them so this doesn't go on for three hours. Cole Conrad career change war named after Cole Conrad, guy who's selling milk these days instead of being the belt or heavyweight champion of the world, which he still probably would be, frankly.

What career would BJ Penn have if he hadn't gotten into fist fighting? Rick, let's start with you. Yeah. I'm our sanctioned fist fighting, right? Because obviously if he wasn't, he'd be fighting in the streets. That's number one. Do you mean his book? I did.

Yeah. He's got two of them. Yeah. I went to. About getting. Again, we just used to beat the shit out of each other at home. So here's a, here's a blast from the past slash thing into my life. I went to a book signing for BJ Penn's first book in Long Island,

near one of Matt Sarah's gyms. It was like, I think Huntington was the area. This was either a day or two days or some very short amount of time after losing to Frankie Edgar and BJ Penn sitting there signing books in glasses. I step up, little meek, you know, Eric, and he signs my book and I'm like, you're going to get him next time, champ. And that was my run with BJ Penn, my moment with BJ Penn. But yes, I have read the book and I've got a signed copy from BJ Penn sitting somewhere in my house. And it was it was me trying to let him know that, you know, he still has some fans there.

There you go. Did you actually say you're going to get him next time? I did. I said you got him champ. I did. I called him champ. That's spectacular. I love that.

And so, yes, I've read the book. But he's either fighting in the streets or he's running for governor. Those are the options for BJ Penn. I had governor. It was mine, so I love that. It's governor of Hawaii. I think he's selling colonics. Jeez.

Did not see that one coming. Good God. I am stunned that we didn't get to talk more about tough five. I know we got to wrap this up soon, but there is so much tough five, goodness, on the, way I mean I feel like that'll come up Yeah I mean Also the best season of tough like by far

Oh by far It's just incredible I recently I'm gonna derail us for half a second I've rewatched that whole season In the last five years when I was doing a night we face Nate Diaz Oh it was like why good God It was before the Connor stuff Or for the Conner stuff

And so I rewatched a lot of this Because I was just gonna like watch one episode and then I was like, oh, this is just spectacular television. I'm going to watch all of this. And I watched it all. And it's so good. It's by far the best season of tough. They've never topped it.

And just the cast, A, the amount of talent on that season is legendary. Like, it's, you've seen the amount of great names who are still fighting now are, is that season? Is it incredible that Coriho got picked over Nate Diaz? I mean, at the time, you have to, like, the physical attributes. You have to kind of nod to it. Rest in peace, Cor Hill. Yeah.

And I'll then be just the antics. And then knowing now who Nate Diaz is and watching him in this house full of idiots and reacting to the antics is just the best. Not only the idiots in the house. It is a good rewatch. Not even just the idiots in the house. How about I'm going to fight Caro Parisian in like the gym. I'm going to get into a heated dispute with Caro Parisian in the gym. I mean, just legendary.

And then, you know, you alluded to it. The Andy Wang mocking is like the all-time moment in tough history. The Andy Wang stuff and the Gabe Rudiger stuff of put me back in coach. Put me back in BJs just beside himself with this guy. He can't believe that this is his team. He doesn't know what's happening right here. Gabe Rudiger, what a special young man. Eat ice cream cake the day he gets his fight.

Not winning fights, I'll tell you that. Didn't he lose twice to Jason Ellis? I'm pretty sure Jason Ellis beat him twice in a boxing match. That can't be true. But it would be great. It's absolutely true. He knocked him out the first time. And then Gabe complained about a bunch of like,

he had different gloves in headgear or whatever. And then they fought again. And Jason Ellis beat him again handily. You mentioned it very early, which now feels like a long time ago. But the freak, he starts the season with the gambit of like, raise your hand if you want to be on my team and don't like Jen's pover. Everybody was a smooth. It's like 10 of the 15 dudes or whatever.

Everybody. It's just brilliant. It's just a great season. And Jen's immediately get stuck with the leftovers. It's so good. I respect. I respect Jinn's trying to play it off. I'm like, fine, I'll take the five dudes.

It's okay. And Dana is just apoplectic. Like, no. Pipped teams. This is ridiculous. BJ Ed is bullying best. Just just, just, I love it.

Cream of the crop. Absolutely. But to dial us back, he would be a pitchman. He'd be a salesman of some. Like he would, that would be the alternate career. It would be just selling me something because he's very good at. Colonics. Cellonics.

Selling colonics, got to make weight. Eat your ice cream cake or just have the clonick. It would be fine. Penn Ultimate category, the Leon Edwards. Look at me now. Award. What was BJ Penn's career peak? Rick, let's go to you.

Yeah. This is always an interesting one because it's like, do you want to get the pinnacle. Here's what I'll say. It's very interesting for BJ Penn because I feel like the fall comes very soon after the peak, right? Like for me, the answer I wrote down is Diego Sanchez at UFC 107. Like the moment he finishes Diego Sanchez and is standing in that cage, you'd be hard pressed to find a person on the planet who's not like, oh, that's the best fighter I've ever seen. Like, that's the dude.

He's the guy. but the fall the lost Eger and then what follows that comes very soon after that so it feels almost like the wrong timing based on that I'd almost say like

somewhere in the range I think that's a fine peak but there can only be one top here's the counter tipy top here's the counter argument maybe it's somewhere in that range between UFC 101 and 107

it's the time between those fights it's that it's that stretch It's that little spot where he's just taken out Ken Flo. He's got Diego coming up and is going to take him out where you look at BJ Penn and you're like, yep, that's it. That is the man who's the best lightweight ever, who's one of the pound for pound best, if not the pound best. And it's unassailable and he proves it. You know, even though I think he beat Frank Yeager in that first fight, it was definitely not the best of BJ Penn, right? There's a clear slippage there between what happens in the Diego fight and what happens in Abu Dhabi.

Now, that Abu Dhabi event was a little bit of a different machine than it is now, right? It's sweltering hot. It's not quite as well produced and set up as it is now. There's a lot of factors that can kind of go into that. But that's why I'm hesitant to say 107 because the immediate aftermath is that is like he kind of looks mediocre. He looks pedestrian and human against Frank Yeager. Whereas between 101 and 107, between Ken Flo and Diego Sanchez, that man was a, A killer. That man was one of the best dudes we've ever seen and nobody could convince me otherwise. So it's somewhere in there.

That to me is why I extrapolated out. I had just 2008 to 2009. That to me is the peak. Like he was the man. He was at the absolute apex of his powers. And one thing too, because Rick, everything you're saying there is spot on in terms of right after the peak comes to fall. And that's one thing that I've noticed as we do more and more of these damn episodes is so often, the career peak is like right before everything goes wrong for everybody for almost everybody and that's just so emblematic of the fight game where maybe you're on top of the world one day and literally next week it's all over it's all over and it's for everybody it's almost everybody in this game but i think i think it's almost like and this is probably not true with everybody it's almost a reality of like they might have peaked a little bit before that and we're on the downside but had enough to get it done right

But we didn't know that that next turn of where it really falls off the cliff was right ahead. And that's why I'm trying to like rewind just a tad to go like right before that is when it was the guy. He was the dude. It's Usman, right? Kumar Usman's a perfect example of top of the world. Number one pound for pound fighter in the whole damn world, beaten Leon Edwards for 24 minutes until all of a sudden that happens. And then by the time that happens, next fight, it's over. Next fight isn't even close, that type of thing.

Yeah. Once it falls, it falls, man. That's honestly what makes what Izzy did so damn impressive because like that is so rare for someone to recapture a moment like that. Nobody recapture the title. Dude, once that moment's gone, usually almost 100% of the time, it is gone. And for Izzy to be able to pull that off, like, great point. You're, Shaheen, you're in the ballpark, but you're too broad. The correct answer is November of 2008.

And I say that specifically because. He's coming off the Shirk win where he's now erased all doubt as the greatest lightweight of all time. Or, well, at that time, yes, and also the undisputed lightweight champion. And that, dear friends, that is when the promotion began for the GSP super fight. The biggest fight of all time, arguably at that point in time, that is when we get a UFC prime time based on basically the boxing 24-7s. The fight, which we really haven't talked about. That's because I knew that it was going to come up here, and so sort of left it from the rest. The rematch was with GSP.

Was that the biggest fight in MMA history at that point in time? Yes. There's one other argument. I think the only other acceptable argument is Fador Krocop. I was going to say which one happened first. Fador Kro Kopp was prior to BJGSP. And I think Fader, because that happened in like 2003. Let me look that up.

2004 maybe. Let me look that up. I want to say three. 2005. 2005. So, 05, that was the biggest fight in history. And I think that was the biggest fight for four years until this took it. I think this was the biggest fight in MMA history until Connor Aldo.

I echo that. I feel like Crowe Cop and Fielder held that belt until it was BJ and GSP. Absolutely. But does the result? actually I'm going to let you finish vamping and then and then maybe I'll jump in. Yeah, no. So the result doesn't bring it down because the peak is the peak. There's only one top of the mountain and that top of the mountain is coming off Sean Shirk with all that energy. And with the UFC looking at their lightweight champion, a guy who they believe in invested in and saying,

we're going to give you a shot to become the first ever, two division simultaneous champion. in it. Not only we're going to do it, we're going to put more promotional effort than we ever have into anything before because we believe this can be the biggest fight we've ever produced. Look at what they do today and think how different it is what they have done for this. Frankly, the blueprint that they have automated into embedded, et cetera, they took from this saying, here's what we did with the biggest fight we ever made at that point in time. and now we're going to condense it and package it in a YouTube video series instead. I remember how big this was at the time.

I remember this being a paradigm shift of, oh shit, this is real. This is getting the full-on treatment. And it did. They gave a full press tour. This whole fight was built to be the biggest fight that we'd ever seen. And it was like, as a BJ Penn fan, this was the fight you wanted for years and years. because BJ won the first one. He goes robbed of the first one,

robbed of his chance to reclaim the title. Then he finally does get to fight Matt Hughes and the injury kind of derails him and it sort of forces him to go back to lightweight, do the things he needed to do, but where he is supposed to be is as the welterweight champion of the world because he's better than Matt Hughes

and he's better than George St. Pierre and we're going to see it. And were we all wrong? Yes. Yes, we were because G. is a dirty cheating greaser. Yes. What is going on?

This is the way to end this. Not true. GSP very clearly probably wins that fight if they ever fight, you know, after this. But I just remember how big of an event that was at the time and how much it meant to me as a fan. And that to me is clearly the peak of his career. Here's my only counter to that, which I agree with all the the context around it and all the ancillary kind of pieces to that. right like that this was a fight that this was the first like none of my friends and a lot of this is a product of you know we live in america and uh mma was harder to access at the time but none of my

friends were like hey how do we watch crow cop versus fador that was you're a hardcore m mma fan you're watching that and anybody else is not even aware this thing ever happened bj pen versus gsp was a thing where it was like text messages people asking you like how do i watch this what bars are showing It was that type of thing. It felt a cultural event. It was one of the U.S.D's first cultural events of that era. So all that said, my only counter to that is it really felt to me like he took a step up in terms of his career and his skills after that. It felt like the Florian and Diego fights were when he was at his unassailable best.

It felt like that was the guy that if you're pointing to one, you're pinpointing one little moment, moment to be like, yep, that was when he was at his best. Because up until then, like, don't get me wrong. The shirt, as we talked about, that Shirk won was absolutely incredible. I'm discounting the GSP loss. Not not because of what we talked about with the greasing, but just because that was a fight that GSP was just clearly better and going to win. And that was not his weight class.

But when he comes back, and I almost thought about, by the way, I almost thought about putting UFC 101 in my list because how easy. would it have been from my Mount Rushmore, how easy would it have been for the guy who is unmotivated, lazy, can't do it, to lose the GSP and then not win coming back to lightweight, to just drop the ball, to just be a shell of himself and not be able to get it done. When he comes back and absolutely brutalizes Kenny Florian, I was like, oh, oh, snap.

This lightweight thing is for real. And then between that and then the Sanchez win, he took it up such a different different level that I was like, this, this is it. That's my only counter is like skill-wise, confluence of all those things. He was probably better then, but it wasn't bigger. It wasn't quote-unquote bigger for sure. He was definitely better than, but when his music, when the Israel Kamakowli drop hits before he's walking out, I ought to run through a brick wall for that dude.

Like there was never a moment where he had more juice than a. immediately before GSP undresses him in the center of the cage for 20 minutes. It's the, what is it, to steal from the ringer, the apex mountain, right? It's like, it's when he had the most, the most juice. That may or may not be exactly the category upon which this one is based. Yeah. Fuck. That's stretch, man.

That's stretch. Dude, the Israel walk out. Before we go to you, Shaheen on this, just because I don't have anywhere else. to put this uh it was super weird to go back and rewatch some fights where he's like coming out to random new metal because that's what the uc did and you're watching fight mac hues or whatever it's like what the shit is this this isn't hawaii this is this is what we're talking about right now and then but then you watch the later career when he obviously gets more of a say in his music and it is the is your comical oly song and it's just like this dude goosebumps

We talked about like the guys that get paired with their outfits, right? We talked about the Silva shorts and the Tito shorts and the Chuck shorts. The walkouts the same. Anders and Silva, the one ain't no sunshine. BJ Penn, the one song. Like there's these things that the consistency, the flavor is just baked into. And it's that walkout with BJ Penn for sure. Yeah.

Shaheen, what do you? You've already given us, didn't you? Yeah. I was the last one to close this one down. Which brings us to the end, ladies and gentlemen. You got the legacy. Let's talk about the legacy. Let's close this thing down.

Eric, let's start with you. Say the rest of your piece on BJ Penn because we are almost done with this podcast. Yeah, we've gone long. I think throughout this, we've gotten a lot out of how I feel about BJ Penn. I feel it was cathartic. I enjoyed this.

I liked going back to it. You know, I know you were a little more pessimistic to start, but this was enjoyable for me. I'll keep it more. more simple in my in my rap with one thing that I don't think was touched on but but quite simply BJ Penn was one of the greatest and most talented fighters of all time like I think that's that's my my thesis statement my summary but I can't think of a guy with a more divergent record from who he was if you look at him on paper 16 and 14 and 1 or whatever it is no cut whatever that record is

that I'm not even, I don't even want to look at because it hurts my heart. There's nobody who's further from that that I can think of in MMA history. There's nobody that if you look at the paper on him and go, eh, whatever, that reached the peaks that he reached, that got the accomplishments that he did, that is so far from the, from the actual, you know, plain wins and losses record than BJ Penn. He defines pound for pound greatness.

He was a guy who challenged himself and tested himself and was ahead of his time in terms of how he dealt with the UFC and holding his own and fighting for things that he thought were right, not being afraid to travel elsewhere, not being afraid to build his own brand, not being afraid to take risks. Nobody diverges more from what's written on paper about them than the real man and experiencing what it was at the time than BJ Penn, who's an absolute legend. Sheen, what do you got for us? No, I mean, I think we've said a lot on this podcast, and really it's just, it's how we started, right? Like, it is just, it is impossible to overstate the tornado that this man became and that, you know, he may be a punchline today. And it's sad that he is a punchline today. But 20 years ago, this chubby dude with the chubby cheeks was one of the most fared men in the world for a damn reason. And like Rick said, you can look at the record, you can look at whatever.

The fact that at worst, this man is a top two lightweight of all time in 2023 with the record that he has, I think says everything. That speaks volumes. If you're able to maintain that type of lineage and legacy and the way people who were in the moment remember you despite as many downturns as this man suffered and still be considered amongst that same breath, it's unbelievable. There is only one BJ Penn. Like there are a lot of, a lot of, I don't know how to say this, but there are a lot of carbon copy type of fighters

throughout history in MMA, right? Like you can point to various figures who we still consider great and say, hey, there are a couple guys like this. Right? There are a couple Eddie Alvarez is similar to that. There are a couple like Benson Hendersons or whoever's. There's one BJ Penn, and there is only one BJ Penn.

And that BJ Penn inspired so many people throughout the history of this. sport. If you just look at a grand pie chart total of the amount of people inspired with what they've done, BJ Penn unequivocally would be one of the top producers on that. It's just he's BJ Penn for a reason. And, you know, we don't think we can ignore the last seven, ten years if we want because the first half was just utterly spectacular and brilliant in a way we had never seen before. Yeah, I normally write out kind of a, at least sketch out an outline of how I want to

conclude the show just because of, you know, reasons or whatever. I didn't for this one because I really didn't know where we were going to go. Because like Rick said, I had a bit of trepidation coming into this one. But this show was everything I wanted it to be because this show kind of really is what I wanted this show as a whole to be, not just about BJ, but about. but about the damn series is records, they don't lie necessarily, but they don't tell you the whole story.

And we've done a lot of fighters on here, but the difference between what you would think of BJ Penn as a guy on paper versus what he was in the cage is so dramatic. And his records, he still has plenty of those. If you go to look at the list of UFC records, he doesn't have any of them. Like he's not at the top of the list. but if you go to the Wikipedia page and Google, you know, do a quick search for BJPen,

his name is all over them for, you know, a few down for title fights and submissions and all the various things that he did at his peak because that's what he was. He was one of the best fighters in the world at his peak. And so for me, kind of the lasting thought I will have when I think back on BJPin is he made, maybe isn't the best fighter ever. He might not be the best lightweight of all time, though I think there's an argument. Maybe not a good one, but there is an argument. And maybe he's not even the most influential or five most influential fighters, even though I do think he is.

He is the most influential fighter in the history of the sport for me. There has never been a fighter who has made me feel more things when he would step into the cage or when a fight would be announced. I have never felt more fear than when BJ has a fight in a game. against Sean Shirk or Diego Sanchez. And that fear is a really important part of fandom for me. The feeling a different emotion than I would, because if I don't feel that, then I don't care as much about the outcome.

It's just not the same. And no fighter in history ever gave me more of those moments. And nobody gave me as many sad moments down the end. Let's be honest about it. But the good drastically outweighs the bad here. And so that is what I will always remember when I think of BJPen is not the rough end, but all of the good times and all of the good feelings during most of it. And so to you, BJ Penn, I say, damn, you were good.

And that's it, ladies and gentlemen, another episode in the books. It was a long one, but frankly, I knew when I picked the topic and picked the gentlemen to join me on this journey. I would like to thank my co-host today, Shaheen Alshaddy, Eric Jackman, the fine people at www.com, great website, and all of you for listening in. We will be back next month with a new fighter. I don't know who it's going to be for June.

I know who we're doing for July. Don't know who we're doing for June. But stay tuned. It should be a good time. Love y'all. The Vox Media Podcast Network.