What’s the story?
UFC Hall of Famer BJ Penn is a former lightweight and welterweight champion, who had retired after losing to Frankie Edgar in 2014. He made a comeback to the Octagon, with his eyes on the featherweight title.
The Prodigy wanted to become the first and only person to hold championship titles in three different weight division. The thing that highlighted his entire career was his ability to dream big and a heart to keep testing his limits.
The 38-year old UFC legend was facing a young and emerging prospect from Mexico, Yair Rodriguez in UFC Fight Night 103. Rodriguez uses as wide array of kicks, and has a very fast and aggressive fight style, which proved too much for the legend to handle.
Right from the start of the first round, Rodriguez overwhelmed Penn with his speed and power. BJ Penn struggled to come up with any reply to Rodriguez’s fighting style and at 24-seconds mark of the second round, the referee had to come to the rescue of Penn.
El Pantera registered his 8th win in a row.
In case you didn’t know...
BJ Penn has a professional MMA record of 16-11-2 (W-L-D). His last victory was against Matt Hughes (46-9-0) at UFC 123, in November 2010. Since then he has fought 5 times, out of which he lost the last 4 fights and scored a majority draw against Jon Fitch at UFC 127.
The Prodigy is one of the few fighters who has fought in several different weight divisions; he even fought in the heavyweight division against Lyoto Machida and lost.
Yair Rodriguez has a professional MMA record of 10-1-0 (W-L-D), with his latest victory coming against the legend BJ Penn. He is the winner of the featherweight division of TUF Latin America season 1, where he was a member of Team Velasquez. He is on a 8-fight winning streak and is 6-0 in UFC since making his debut in UFC 180.
In the fight at UFC Fight Night 103, the young Rodriguez landed 55 significant strikes, while the legend Penn could reply with 4 significant strikes of his own.
The heart of the matter
For his return, BJ Penn surrounded himself with elite training partners and coaches but that did not help the aging fighter. He was no match in the Octagon against a young and dangerous Rodriguez, who made quick work of the legend. Following the latest performance many fighters think that The Prodigy should retire for good now.
Kenny Florian, who is a former fighter and Fox Sports 1 analyst shared the same view in the post-fight show at FS1,
“Retire at this point. No one needs to see a legend like BJ Penn go out like that. That was very hard to see, not to mention the last fight against Frankie Edgar was very hard to see. Now we are at it again with Yair Rodriguez. The sport has passed him by. This is a eventuality for every single fighter. This sport is way too hard. There’s other ways to make money, and I hope BJ Penn finds some kind of peace retiring finally.”
What next?
After this devastating defeat, BJ Penn did not make any statement and was not available for any questions. It is not certain, whether he will continue with his comeback and still try to win that elusive 3rd championship belt or he will finally realize that it’s time for him to retire.
As for Yair Rodriguez, he has an amazing start to his UFC career and after his recent win against the Hall of Famer BJ Penn, things are only looking better for his career.
Sportskeeda’s Take
In spite of the recent defeats in his career, BJ Penn will always be seen as a pioneer of the MMA world. His warrior’s heart and fearless attitude has inspired many young fighters in MMA to be like him. He has always done the unthinkable and built his legacy around it.
But at 38-years old, it’s time for him to retire from MMA as the sport has outgrown him.
The Prodigy should finally call it quits and not tarnish his reputation any further. No one is going to blame him for trying, but he sould now focus on nurturing the young talents. In spite of the result to this recent fight, it was an honour to see him in the Octagon again, hopefully for the last time.
We respect his dedication and contributions in MMA.
