Tag: The Ultimate Fighter 19

TUF 19: BJ Penn Comes Full Circle Against Frankie Edgar

The year is 2007.
The UFC’s lightweight division is not only not a feature attraction, it basically doesn’t exist. Sean Sherk is the champion, but he’s only held the belt for a couple of months after the title had been shelved for nearly four years.
Th…

The year is 2007.

The UFC’s lightweight division is not only not a feature attraction, it basically doesn’t exist. Sean Sherk is the champion, but he’s only held the belt for a couple of months after the title had been shelved for nearly four years.

The man many consider the true champion, legendary Hawaiian warrior BJ Penn has only been back in action for about a year after a UFC absence due to contract issues. He’s fought exclusively at welterweight since his comeback.

But now he’s coaching The Ultimate Fighter 5. He’ll see Jens Pulver, a longtime lightweight rival, across the cage when the season is over. All the competitors are lightweights, most of whom will become household names within a few years.

Lightweight is back.

BJ Penn is back.

He’ll go on to torch Pulver in his return to 155 pounds and reclaim the title he never lost soon after.

His place as the greatest lightweight of all time is secured with title defenses that span across two years, most of which see him looking better than he ever has.

The year is 2014.

Built on the blood, sweat, and tears of the men who have competed since 2006, the lightweight division is a feature attraction. Anthony Pettis is the champion and is still seeing his popularity grow.

He’s young, talented, and marketable, and the UFC is enjoying promoting its newest superstar.

A weight class below him, legendary Hawaiian warrior BJ Penn is reinventing himself as a featherweight. He’s working with diet guru Mike Dolce to make his first trip to 145 pounds a pleasant one.

He’s on television every week, coaching The Ultimate Fighter 19, appearing in the position for the first time since 2007. When it’s all over, he’ll see longtime rival Frankie Edgar—a man who handed him two losses and sent him packing from the division he basically created—across the cage. No one knows what the future holds for the cast members, but some are bound to break through in the UFC.

BJ Penn is back.

He’s come full circle.

The BJ Penn you’ll see next year is not the one you saw in 2007.

That Penn left town on his own terms, hadn’t lost at 155 pounds since Pulver beat him in 2002 and was a welterweight title contender while he awaited a chance to return to his natural weight class.

This Penn is a loser of four of his past six, his only win in that time coming over the now-retired Matt Hughes. Dana White has begged him to retire, but he’s not going out unless it’s on his terms.

Again.

In a lot of ways, the Penn returning after a layoff of at least 16 months is what Pulver was in 2007—a former champion who had shown some signs of fading, but who no one wanted to admit might be done.

The Penn loss was his second in a row, and he’d go on to lose six straight after a single win. Since 2007 he’s gone 6-10, and losses in more recent times have been to guys he’d have destroyed in his prime.

The other actor in this play, Edgar, is in 2014, ironically, the Penn of 2007. He’s a former champion who’s still in his prime, beloved by most for his gutsy performances, and thought by some to have never lost his title in the first place.

He’s reinvented himself in a new weight class and is looking to vanquish his greatest rival one more time on the way back to the top of the heap.

So why do the fight?

Edgar beat Penn twice in 2010, and nothing has indicated that the two have gotten closer in ability in the time since they last met.

For one, Penn wants it. Bad.

For another, Edgar never met a fight he didn’t like, so he didn’t take much convincing.

Plus, it’s happening in a new weight class where the possibilities are endless for either guy coming off a win.

But perhaps most importantly, the fight is happening because MMA is a full-circle sport. There’s a very clear trajectory in the career of a mixed martial artist.

You start off young.

You rise.

You beat veterans on the way to the top.

You maybe win a title.

You maybe lose it.

You’re a veteran on the way down.

You fall.

You’re old.

It’s a would-be circle of life, and it’s being played out right in front of our eyes with Penn’s return to TUF and, eventually, the cage.

The only thing left to see is whether or not he can alter that course, whether he can show that he’s got something left in a career that is, without question, among the most remarkable in the history of the sport. Time and evidence, however, aren’t on his side.

This spring BJ Penn comes full circle against Frankie Edgar. It’s a fight six years in the making, but we didn’t even know it until a few weeks ago.

Looking at history though, we all kind of knew this was the way it had to end.

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Stop the Drama: Frankie Edgar vs. BJ Penn Isn’t Pointless

Ariel Helwani’s announcement on UFC Tonight on Wednesday (h/t Fox Sports) that former UFC lightweight and welterweight champion BJ Penn would be returning from a brief pseudo-retirement to serve as a coach on The Ultimate Fighter 19 was met with a curi…

Ariel Helwani’s announcement on UFC Tonight on Wednesday (h/t Fox Sports) that former UFC lightweight and welterweight champion BJ Penn would be returning from a brief pseudo-retirement to serve as a coach on The Ultimate Fighter 19 was met with a curious reaction, at least among those who reside on the Internet and consider their opinions to be hard facts agreed upon by the rest of the world.

Perhaps this is a bit harsh. But if I’m being honest with you—and what else do we have here, dear reader, except for the honesty between us?—I found the entire reaction a tad silly, if not downright ludicrous.

You’d think the end of the world was upon us, or at the very least that the UFC suddenly forgot how to make money. Or that Penn was somehow—after losing a few fights and looking lackluster in a weight class he never should have competed in—never as good as he actually was.

Because that’s how things happen in this sport—a fighter approaches his twilight years and loses a few fights, and then everything he accomplished before didn’t actually mean that much in the first place.

The biggest criticism I saw of Frankie Edgar vs. Penn 3 is that it was “pointless,” and I realized that perhaps not everyone understands what the word means.

Here is The Free Dictionary’s definition:

point·less
adj.
1. Lacking meaning; senseless.
2. Ineffectual: pointless attempts to rescue the victims of the raging fire.

You may not like the fight. Hell, given the reaction I saw from most of you, there’s a pretty good chance that you hate the fight. Which I assume means you won’t be watching next July when Penn and Edgar finally fight, except you will.

We all will. But that’s neither here nor there.

Pointless would indicate that there’s no reason for booking Edgar vs. Penn. Edgar has already beaten him twice, right? And so why would we want to see it happen a third time?

I can understand that line of thinking, and I’m right there with you in wanting to see both men fight other people. 

But that being said, it is not pointless. Not by any stretch of the imagination. And if you think that Dana White—who stopped short of saying that the winner would face featherweight champ Jose Aldo—is not above putting Penn in there with one of the modern pound-for-pound greats, you’ve already forgotten Jon Jones and Chael Sonnen occupying 12 weeks of time on your television before Sonnen stepped into the cage for a wholly undeserved title shot.

Penn doesn’t deserve Aldo. It’s ridiculous to think otherwise. And I don’t even know if Penn can make featherweight; after all, this is a man who struggled to make lightweight. He certainly has the frame, but the “motivated BJ Penn” meme was played out, oh, six or seven years ago. The proof is in the pudding, not in the talking that comes before the pudding.

But “deserve” isn’t the point. Who deserves what is rarely what spurs the UFC decision-making machine, and nearly every person who follows the sport religiously is aware of that. Or, at least they should be.

The point of all of this, of the entire sport, is to make the UFC money. And Edgar vs. Penn, even on the third iteration, is going to attract casual fans much more than any other featherweight would taking on Penn or Edgar separately. 

Well, except Edgar vs. Chad Mendes. That one would pull in hardcore fans and casuals alike.

I wish the UFC had been able to put together the deal for Edgar and Urijah Faber to coach the show. That’s much more intriguing than seeing Edgar and Penn go for a third time or watching Penn try to recapture some of his former glory in a different weight class against a man who has already beaten him twice.

But that doesn’t make the fight pointless. It has a point: to pull in television ratings on Fox Sports 1. To make the UFC some money, even if it’s a nominal amount. And to attract eyeballs that don’t spend their days on message boards, comment sections or Twitter.

Edgar vs. Penn isn’t pointless. It isn’t the best fight, but it’s not the worst either. And if you’re that adamant that you hate the idea so much, well, you always have the option of tuning out with your remote. Do it. Next summer, when the fight hits pay-per-view, don’t watch it. 

That’s not going to happen, though. And we both know it. 

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

Stop the Drama: Frankie Edgar vs. BJ Penn Isn’t Pointless

Ariel Helwani’s announcement on UFC Tonight on Wednesday (h/t Fox Sports) that former UFC lightweight and welterweight champion BJ Penn would be returning from a brief pseudo-retirement to serve as a coach on The Ultimate Fighter 19 was met with a curi…

Ariel Helwani’s announcement on UFC Tonight on Wednesday (h/t Fox Sports) that former UFC lightweight and welterweight champion BJ Penn would be returning from a brief pseudo-retirement to serve as a coach on The Ultimate Fighter 19 was met with a curious reaction, at least among those who reside on the Internet and consider their opinions to be hard facts agreed upon by the rest of the world.

Perhaps this is a bit harsh. But if I’m being honest with you—and what else do we have here, dear reader, except for the honesty between us?—I found the entire reaction a tad silly, if not downright ludicrous.

You’d think the end of the world was upon us, or at the very least that the UFC suddenly forgot how to make money. Or that Penn was somehow—after losing a few fights and looking lackluster in a weight class he never should have competed in—never as good as he actually was.

Because that’s how things happen in this sport—a fighter approaches his twilight years and loses a few fights, and then everything he accomplished before didn’t actually mean that much in the first place.

The biggest criticism I saw of Frankie Edgar vs. Penn 3 is that it was “pointless,” and I realized that perhaps not everyone understands what the word means.

Here is The Free Dictionary’s definition:

point·less
adj.
1. Lacking meaning; senseless.
2. Ineffectual: pointless attempts to rescue the victims of the raging fire.

You may not like the fight. Hell, given the reaction I saw from most of you, there’s a pretty good chance that you hate the fight. Which I assume means you won’t be watching next July when Penn and Edgar finally fight, except you will.

We all will. But that’s neither here nor there.

Pointless would indicate that there’s no reason for booking Edgar vs. Penn. Edgar has already beaten him twice, right? And so why would we want to see it happen a third time?

I can understand that line of thinking, and I’m right there with you in wanting to see both men fight other people. 

But that being said, it is not pointless. Not by any stretch of the imagination. And if you think that Dana White—who stopped short of saying that the winner would face featherweight champ Jose Aldo—is not above putting Penn in there with one of the modern pound-for-pound greats, you’ve already forgotten Jon Jones and Chael Sonnen occupying 12 weeks of time on your television before Sonnen stepped into the cage for a wholly undeserved title shot.

Penn doesn’t deserve Aldo. It’s ridiculous to think otherwise. And I don’t even know if Penn can make featherweight; after all, this is a man who struggled to make lightweight. He certainly has the frame, but the “motivated BJ Penn” meme was played out, oh, six or seven years ago. The proof is in the pudding, not in the talking that comes before the pudding.

But “deserve” isn’t the point. Who deserves what is rarely what spurs the UFC decision-making machine, and nearly every person who follows the sport religiously is aware of that. Or, at least they should be.

The point of all of this, of the entire sport, is to make the UFC money. And Edgar vs. Penn, even on the third iteration, is going to attract casual fans much more than any other featherweight would taking on Penn or Edgar separately. 

Well, except Edgar vs. Chad Mendes. That one would pull in hardcore fans and casuals alike.

I wish the UFC had been able to put together the deal for Edgar and Urijah Faber to coach the show. That’s much more intriguing than seeing Edgar and Penn go for a third time or watching Penn try to recapture some of his former glory in a different weight class against a man who has already beaten him twice.

But that doesn’t make the fight pointless. It has a point: to pull in television ratings on Fox Sports 1. To make the UFC some money, even if it’s a nominal amount. And to attract eyeballs that don’t spend their days on message boards, comment sections or Twitter.

Edgar vs. Penn isn’t pointless. It isn’t the best fight, but it’s not the worst either. And if you’re that adamant that you hate the idea so much, well, you always have the option of tuning out with your remote. Do it. Next summer, when the fight hits pay-per-view, don’t watch it. 

That’s not going to happen, though. And we both know it. 

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

Stop the Drama: Frankie Edgar vs. BJ Penn Isn’t Pointless

Ariel Helwani’s announcement on UFC Tonight on Wednesday (h/t Fox Sports) that former UFC lightweight and welterweight champion BJ Penn would be returning from a brief pseudo-retirement to serve as a coach on The Ultimate Fighter 19 was met with a curi…

Ariel Helwani’s announcement on UFC Tonight on Wednesday (h/t Fox Sports) that former UFC lightweight and welterweight champion BJ Penn would be returning from a brief pseudo-retirement to serve as a coach on The Ultimate Fighter 19 was met with a curious reaction, at least among those who reside on the Internet and consider their opinions to be hard facts agreed upon by the rest of the world.

Perhaps this is a bit harsh. But if I’m being honest with you—and what else do we have here, dear reader, except for the honesty between us?—I found the entire reaction a tad silly, if not downright ludicrous.

You’d think the end of the world was upon us, or at the very least that the UFC suddenly forgot how to make money. Or that Penn was somehow—after losing a few fights and looking lackluster in a weight class he never should have competed in—never as good as he actually was.

Because that’s how things happen in this sport—a fighter approaches his twilight years and loses a few fights, and then everything he accomplished before didn’t actually mean that much in the first place.

The biggest criticism I saw of Frankie Edgar vs. Penn 3 is that it was “pointless,” and I realized that perhaps not everyone understands what the word means.

Here is The Free Dictionary’s definition:

point·less
adj.
1. Lacking meaning; senseless.
2. Ineffectual: pointless attempts to rescue the victims of the raging fire.

You may not like the fight. Hell, given the reaction I saw from most of you, there’s a pretty good chance that you hate the fight. Which I assume means you won’t be watching next July when Penn and Edgar finally fight, except you will.

We all will. But that’s neither here nor there.

Pointless would indicate that there’s no reason for booking Edgar vs. Penn. Edgar has already beaten him twice, right? And so why would we want to see it happen a third time?

I can understand that line of thinking, and I’m right there with you in wanting to see both men fight other people. 

But that being said, it is not pointless. Not by any stretch of the imagination. And if you think that Dana White—who stopped short of saying that the winner would face featherweight champ Jose Aldo—is not above putting Penn in there with one of the modern pound-for-pound greats, you’ve already forgotten Jon Jones and Chael Sonnen occupying 12 weeks of time on your television before Sonnen stepped into the cage for a wholly undeserved title shot.

Penn doesn’t deserve Aldo. It’s ridiculous to think otherwise. And I don’t even know if Penn can make featherweight; after all, this is a man who struggled to make lightweight. He certainly has the frame, but the “motivated BJ Penn” meme was played out, oh, six or seven years ago. The proof is in the pudding, not in the talking that comes before the pudding.

But “deserve” isn’t the point. Who deserves what is rarely what spurs the UFC decision-making machine, and nearly every person who follows the sport religiously is aware of that. Or, at least they should be.

The point of all of this, of the entire sport, is to make the UFC money. And Edgar vs. Penn, even on the third iteration, is going to attract casual fans much more than any other featherweight would taking on Penn or Edgar separately. 

Well, except Edgar vs. Chad Mendes. That one would pull in hardcore fans and casuals alike.

I wish the UFC had been able to put together the deal for Edgar and Urijah Faber to coach the show. That’s much more intriguing than seeing Edgar and Penn go for a third time or watching Penn try to recapture some of his former glory in a different weight class against a man who has already beaten him twice.

But that doesn’t make the fight pointless. It has a point: to pull in television ratings on Fox Sports 1. To make the UFC some money, even if it’s a nominal amount. And to attract eyeballs that don’t spend their days on message boards, comment sections or Twitter.

Edgar vs. Penn isn’t pointless. It isn’t the best fight, but it’s not the worst either. And if you’re that adamant that you hate the idea so much, well, you always have the option of tuning out with your remote. Do it. Next summer, when the fight hits pay-per-view, don’t watch it. 

That’s not going to happen, though. And we both know it. 

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

Twitter Reacts to BJ Penn vs. Frankie Edgar TUF Announcement

Big news coming out today on UFC Tonight on Fox Sports 1 that former UFC welterweight and lightweight champion BJ Penn will be coming out of retirement to coach The Ultimate Fighter season 19 opposite Frankie Edgar.
The shocking cherry on top of that s…

Big news coming out today on UFC Tonight on Fox Sports 1 that former UFC welterweight and lightweight champion BJ Penn will be coming out of retirement to coach The Ultimate Fighter season 19 opposite Frankie Edgar.

The shocking cherry on top of that startling sundae is that their coaches’ fight would be at 145 lbs, which is completely unknown ground for Penn.

Naturally, the entire MMA world blew up over the news, and reactions have been both many and mixed. First, let’s see what our own Bleacher Report MMA crew had to say. Unsurprisingly, like the rest of the world, reactions ran the gamut:

Lead Writer Jeremy Botter had pointed words for all the naysayers that came out:

Naturally, Bleacher Report wasn’t the only site to offer sudden reactions to the news. The rest of the MMA media came out in force:

Fighters, though, were were considerably more positive when it came to their reactions to the news. Strikeforce import and UFC lightweight contender Pat Healy had this to say: 

Frankie Edgar’s training partner, WSOF bantamweight fighter Marlon Moraes, gave a shout-out to his buddy:

Our own Damon Martin brought us a great tidbit of news in the middle of the action:

While the weight divisions and taping are set, fans will have to wait on news regarding contestants. They can, however, look for the series to debut sometime in April 2014. 

Stick with Bleacher Report for more information on TUF 19 as it approaches, and make sure to keep an eye out for our TUF 18 coverage! 

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com