Looks like one UFC legend wasn’t blowing smoke when he said he was retiring as a mixed martial artist after a tough loss last year.
“I haven’t made any plans to come back and fight again, Dana White has actually called me a couple times and talked to me, it’s just something that’s not in my future right now,” BJ Penn said at the UFC on Fuel TV 2 post fight presser.
“The UFC is the best athletes in the world, but I don’t know. In a perfect world, I can’t even see the scenario right now this moment. It’s just something that if I feel it, I feel it, and if not we’ll just sit back and watch all the other guys kick butt in the Octagon.”
“The Prodigy,” a former UFC welterweight and lightweight champion, announced his retirement after dropping a decision to fellow jiu-jitsu ace Nick Diaz at UFC 137 in October.
“This is probably the last time you’re ever going to see me in here. I want to perform at the top level. That’s it,” Penn said immediately after the loss.
“I’ve got a daughter, another daughter on the way, I don’t want to go home looking like this. I’m done.”
While Penn said he has been casually training at a new gym he is opening in Oahu, Hawaii, he is more focused now on teaching his students there and spending quality time with his family.
“I’m opening the UFC gym, the B.J. Penn/UFC gym in Oahu. I’ve been doing that and I’ve been watching my gym at home. I’ve just been kind of teaching and training, I like it,” Penn explained.
“Just go to the gym when I feel like training I train, and if not I watch my daughters.”
Penn is just 1-3-1 in his past five fights, with his sole victory coming over fellow UFC legend Matt Hughes in a rubber match at UFC 123.
After losing to a contender like Diaz at welterweight and given the plethora of title hopefuls that exist at lightweight, perhaps Penn picked the right time to walk way from the Octagon.
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