B.J. Penn: Never Gone

I’ve heard a lot of discussion about B.J. Penn (14-5-1 MMA, 10-4-1 UFC, #1 IWMMAR) getting “back on the winning track” and, all due respect to my friend Dave Mayeda, I understand that B.J.’s loss to Georges St. Pierre (19-2 MMA, 13-2 UFC, #1 IWMMAR) and both the hype and the ensuing aftermath (which cast B.J. as both lazy and a sore loser), but the reality is, B.J. at lightweight and B.J. at welterweight are two distinctly different fighters.

At 170 pounds, Penn often gains weight so that he can be as heavy as his opponent and does it in a way that is not, from a physiological standpoint, a good idea. At 155 pounds, he comes down in weight, his cardio drastically improves and his power is more substantial.

Physically, he’s as big as almost, excluding Sean Sherk (33-4-1 MMA, 7-4 UFC) , all of his opponents. He can, by his own admission, take many more shots at 155 than he can at 170, because his opponents are lighter. His technical ability comes across more, because he has the strength and the explosiveness to use the techniques and to impose his will more effectively. Not to mention, having a bigger, heavier fighter lean on you for a few rounds is much more difficult than going toe-to-toe with a guy your own size. Sometimes, even a technical advantage can be neutralized by the strength of an opponent who knows how to defend effectively and lay down some grinding.

What we saw in Penn’s fight with Kenny Florian (11-4 MMA, 9-3 UFC, #2 IWMMAR) was not the rebirth of a phenomenal fighter, but rather the return of his incarnation at 155 pounds, which had never really left.

What highlights this point, basically makes it for me, is acknowledging that there is a radical difference in the record between the two separate fighters. In the UFC’s welterweight division, Penn holds a record of 1-3. While he’s a former champion in that division, the win that brought him the title is his only victory in the division. While the win over Matt Hughes (43-7 MMA, 16-5 UFC, #5 IWMMAR) was impressive, it was his definitive victory in the division. At best, he’s a Matt Serra (9-6 MMA, 6-6 UFC) figure in the weight class, who maintains credibility on the basis of a single, huge upset victory. If that sounds harsh, it’s only because Penn has been granted title shots on two occassions without winning a top contenders bout in the division. The win came in 2004, so it’s hard to justify a title shot on that grounds.

B.J. chokes out KenFlo.

Now, B.J. in the UFC lightweight division holds a record of 9-1-1 in what is basically an inversion of his welterweight record. His only loss came at the hands of Jens Pulver (22-13-1 MMA, 6-2-1 UFC) in 2002, and has since been avenged when he destroyed Jens at the TUF 5 finale in 2007. He’s dominated everyone he’s fought at 155 in the Octagon since that fight with Pulver. He’s a legitimate champion who earned his opportunity to fight for a vacant title and has defended that title twice in dominant performances.

Penn is a phenom at lightweight, and his career in the division has only hit a single stumbling block in that bout with Pulver. Since that fight he’s won six bouts inside the Octagon, including a draw with Caol Uno (27-12-4 MMA, 3-3-1 UFC) that wasn’t really a draw. His career at lightweight has never been controversial and he’s only been considered out of the #1 lightweight spot when he hasn’t been active in the division. He choked out Takanori Gomi (30-5 MMA) , who held the #1 spot for much of the period in which he was making his run in higher weightclasses in K-1, and while it seems like B.J. needed a credibility boost after his post fight appeals made him look like an unrepentant whiner, his career at lightweight is what it has always been: dominant.