B.J. Penn is the most versatile fighter in the sport today. There are those who will object and say that Anderson Silva or Georges St. Pierre has him beat in terms of versatility, but St. Pierre lacks Penn’s jiu-jitsu prowess (and the blackbelt and world championship win) and Anderson doesn’t, at least from what we’ve seen, have the same capacity for ground and pound that Penn does.
If you put most champions in the cage with anybody in their division, just a middle of the pack fighter, they would revert to their game plan and dispose of their opponent with relative ease by playing their game. Penn wouldn’t do that.
B.J. Penn debuted in the UFC and was billed as a jiu-jitsu prodigy, something that we all knew he was. B.J. didn’t even finish an opponent with a submission in his first stint in the UFC. Instead, he made everyone in the division respect the power of his strikes when he knocked out Caol Uno, Din Thomas and Joey Gilbert, fighters who he was expected to work to the ground and submit.
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