So What’s Been the Reason for BJ Penns Demise?

The average fighter got better. BJ didn't.. There are a lot more elite fighters now compared to before in that weight class.
 
Penn had arguably the most natural talent out of any MMA fighter ever (literal prodigy in bjj, unbelievable flexibility and takedown defense, one of the best if not the best chins ever, heavy hands, etc) but he was lazy and squandered his gifts. He was too arrogant to realize this until it was far too late. Now he is trying to regain what he lost but he's too physically beaten down/mentally drained to compete anymore... yet he can't accept this and keeps trying to fight which causes him to decline more and more. He can't let go and if athletic commissions were legitimate organizations and not completely corrupt cash grabs, they would stop him
 
GSP totally outclassed him and ruined his life.
 
his corner discontinued the ear trumpet ritual
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155 got a LOT better and Penn started losing. Penn isn't that old, he isn't washed up he just wasn't competitive at 155 once 155 became the best division in the UFC.
 
Penn was a worker for about 5 or six fights...whenever he went on that tear as the lw champ and was destroying guys left and right. He fired the Marinovich brothers and ran into some guys that work way harder than him. He had the talent but lacked work ethic. He got by on talent in the early days when everybody had day jobs, but when he fired the best trainers he ever had and kept fighting full time fighters he ran into problems.

Obviously, he got old. He also never evolved in the sense that everybody works harder than him. You just can't compete at a high level in mma without working your ass off anymore. It's been that way for close to a decade.
 
Ares Black said:
Hughes 3? Stevenson? Sanchez? Sherk?
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Sanchez landed like 6 punches over five rounds--i'd say that was a pretty terrific performance. All good examples above. he made Joe Daddy cry and walked right through Sherk.
 
Normot said:
It's when fighters started running. Fucking bullshit. This sport used to be for fighters, not dorks who ran every day.
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and these dweebs nowadays "study tape" and have coaches come up with "gameplans". Just go in there and scrap!
 
He got old... not everyone is the same.

Also he never trained as hard as he should have.
 
Lack of motivation to train (bad cardio) and him training at his own gym. He was much better when he was training outside of Hawaii. How many fighters has his gym produced? I can't think of a single one. Did he even bring in good sparring partners?
 
Unmotivated. Motivated Penn is something special.

He needs to fight Diego Sanchez next. There's something about Sanchez's trash talk that gets under Penn's skin and makes Penn tear Sanchez apart.

Second, Penn is desperate for a win. You've got to give him a winnable fight. Diego is a winnable fight. BJ's boxing is much better; so is his BJJ.

Diego wants a name (Maia was taken by Askren) and a BJJ expert opponent.

If BJ can't beat Sanchez again, he really must retire.
 
As soon as a once-great fighter gets old and washed up, he was never actually good. Gotta love Sherdog.
 
Skill set below nicks? He out grappled him Like it was a joke in the first round and almost choked him out lol. Are you forgetting Penn won the first round pretty easily?

He's over 40 with a ton of miles on him.

His reflexes are shot, his flexibility is shot, it's probably hard on his body to do a hard camp at his age.

When spectacular fighters lose the aspects that make them spectacular they look human very quickly.

Roy Jones Jr losing his speed and reflexes, silva in the same boat. BJ as well.

Nothing new here. Your window of opportunity at the top as a lower weight fighter is much smaller than say a heavyweight
 
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