With MMA being the relatively young sport that it is, there are very few fighters that people can consider legends.
Last night at UFC 137, the sport undoubtedly lost two legends.
Both B.J. Penn and Mirko Cro Cop have decided to hang up their gloves after disappointing performances on Saturday’s card, leaving fans suddenly without two of the top 20 fighters of all-time.
Cro Cop has been rumored to retire for quite a while now, and it seemed like every fight was going to be his last, but after his third consecutive knockout loss, he decided that it was time to call it quits.
Penn’s retirement has come as quite a shock to the MMA community, but really it is unclear why.
Penn has hinted at retirement quite a bit over his last few fights, even stating that he would have hung it up if he had lost to Jon Fitch back in February, but it always seemed like his claims were a little half-hearted.
Both fighters officially announced they were done shortly after losing very tough fights, so it can be argued that both could eventually fight again and that emotions just got the better of them, but it seemed very obvious that both were sincere in their words.
Both Penn (16-8-2) and Cro Cop (27-10-2) retire with records that don’t truly reflect how good they actually were, and both men suffered severe hits to their legacies in the last few years.
If this is truly the last time either of these fighters are seen inside a cage, it has truly been an honor to watch them fight, and their legacies will only continue to grow now that they are gone, along with a sport that seems to be getting bigger by the minute.
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