On a recent edition of his podcast, the comedian discussed MMA alongside Bas Rutten. Naturally, the two shifted the conversations to the older day of the sport. There, they discussed some of the greatest fighters of all time, and began praising ‘The Prodigy’.
The 44-year-old has been out of the cage since a unanimous decision loss to Clay Guida in May 2019. However, that was far past the Hawaiian’s prime. During the peak of his powers, Penn claimed the welterweight and lightweight titles and claimed wins over names such as Matt Hughes, Kenny Florian, Diego Sanchez, Sean Sherk, and more.
Thanks to the resume of BJ Penn, Joe Rogan holds him among one of the greatest fighters ever. Furthermore, the UFC commentator added that he believes the former champion would be able to hold his own against any lightweight ever. Considering the division has featured names such as Khabib Nurmagomedov, Conor McGregor, and more, that’s high praise from Rogan.
BJ Penn in Hawaii
“BJ Penn was a special guy man,” Joe Rogan stated on a recent edition of his podcast alongside Bas Rutten. “When people talk about GOATS, unfortunately, they leave him out of the equation. But, if you look at BJ in his prime, when he beat Sean Sherk. When he beat Diego Sanchez in his prime, he was just smashing people. Joe Stevenson, BJ Penn was a motherf*cker.”
He continued, “I put that BJ Penn against any 155-pounder that’s ever lived… He knocked out a lot of fcking people, and his jiu-jitsu was off the charts, off the charts! He was so fcking talented.”
Longtime UFC commentator Joe Rogan has seen thousands of fighters come and go from the promotion over the years. So when he identifies someone as a unique entity, it should mean a lot.
That’s how Rogan feels about undefeated rising star Ian Machado Garry, who is quickly gaining traction as a welterweight on the rise after starting his octagon tenure with five consecutive wins.
Garry (12-0 MMA, 5-0 UFC) was criticized by many early in his UFC tenure as an attempted copycat of fellow Irishman Conor McGregor. His work inside the cage has started to generation attention of his own, though, especially after Garry scored a first-round TKO of Daniel Rodriguez at UFC on ABC 4 this month.
Rogan wasn’t on commentary for Garry’s triumphant effort against Rodriguez, but he did make sure to watch it. And from everything he’s seen out of Garry thus far, he thinks the promotion has something special on its hands.
“(He’s) undefeated, so confident and so intelligent,” Rogan said on a recent episode of “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast with guest Bas Rutten. “Beating Daniel Rodriguez like that in the last fight, and being the first guy to stop Rodriguez (with strikes) – that’s a big deal. He’s got it. Whatever ‘it’ is, he’s got it. He’s on his way up.”
Garry also was praised by UFC president Dana White in the aftermath of his most recent performance. It’s hard to deny the 25-year-old has plenty of potential, and Garry told MMA Junkie in a recent interview he intends to maximize his position and continue to make waves.
“I am what I say I am,” Garry said. “I know what I’m capable of, and it’s time that the organization and the people who are doubting me see it, too. … Dana should be excited for my potential because it’s another superstar in the making.”
SEAN SHERK
YA DEAD
Yup
Prime BJ Penn = LW GOAT
It was a very short prime but he really was something special.
I remember we had a guy who trained with BJ when they were at the John Lewis Academy. I think it might have been called J-Sect or something like that, this guy was supposed to be a stand up specialist and had a number of pro fights. This was when BJ was just a jiu-jitsu guy, I think this was just before he won the worlds. Well I just remember this guy was 100 percent positive BJ would be the UFC champion one day. He was telling us that BJ could throw hands with the best of them and nobody could touch him on the ground. Shortly thereafter BJ started his UFC career and my dad took me to watch the UFC where BJ knocked out Uno and just ran out of the cage. I remember I was like damn this BJ guy is legit, been a fan ever since.
Say what you want about BJ but he was a BAD dude.
5 years is long in the fight game IMO
I don’t think he was at the top of his game for 5 years though. 2 maybe.
Really? I counted moving up to beat Hughes and GSP all the way until Kflo/Diego to be his prime years. I also think he beat Frankie but whatever.
He was the best LW on the planet for eight years straight. Even before that his only blemish was a majority decision to Pulver in a close fight that was also only his 4th pro fight. For well over five years he was also one of the best WW’s on the planet and beat Hughes 2x and gave GSP all he wanted in their first fight. Despite being a LW he took Machida the distance in a close decision at HW.
He destroyed Din Thomas in 2001 and was still able to draw Fitch in 2011.
Not that every fight is gonna look like the first Uno fight but I think he was up there at least close to his prime for a lot longer than two years.
yeh he did beat frankie. he should have the most title defenses in lw history and a win over gsp but got fucked by the judges