B.J. Penn's legacy

how bad does he need this fight in terms of legacy. I thought GSP was a legacy type fight, and he came up woefully short. I think he needs this one.

9-1-1 as a LW, regarded as the best LW all-time currently, LW and WW Champ, he needs the win, but his legacy is fine

Yeah I agree with LA. He needs this win though

I think he needs this one big time. In the past he's lost to guys like Hughes & GSP. Those guys are icons of the WW division. Losing to someone like Florian is going to diminish his legacy greatly since he went from a top 5 (by some.... surprisingly a lot by my estimation) P4P and losing to KenFlo who is a goof fighter, but not someone who will be remembered 10 years from now.

Penn's legacy requires a long period of dominance or it will always be full of "what if?" and "ya but".

BJ Penn is/was/always will be my favorite fighter. with that said, does he NEED this fight? no. he's already the greatest lightweight thus far. but, i will say, this fight, along with another 3-4 title defenses in a row would definitely put him in the upper echelon of all-time fighters. if he defends that lightweight belt a solid 4 to 5 more times, he is easily top 10 P4P all-time. IMHO. of course that means he has to avoid the venture into the WW class for the next 3 years or so. he also should definitely make sure he knows when its time to hang up the gloves. nobody wants to see him (well maybe some people do) in even worse shape at say, 38, and gassing out worse then he does already and getting owned by much lesser fighters.

BJ needs to string together some title defenses, if he doesn't he'll be the greatest LW hype ever.

tolivendiewithLA wrote:

9-1-1 as a LW, regarded as the best LW all-time currently, LW and WW Champ, he needs the win, but his legacy is fine

If Florian wins he'll be 10-1 in his last 11. 9-1-1 is good, it's very good, but I can name a bunch of dudes with similar stretches.

In terms of legacy I'm saying will he be on the same level as Spider or GSP. Still early on Machida(though again he already trumps the 9-1-1) but he looks to be heading towards a level higher then Penn. Randy is a guy who some say is overrated, but he has accomplished WAY more then Penn.

So what I'm saying is, if Penn wants to be considered an All Time Great, he needs this one, and(like Wolf stated) at least a couple more after it.

I dont know i just think BJ has lost his heart to fight. As far as a legacy, he needs to def get some back to back title defenses going and maybe defend the thing a little more often. He is a great fighter, no doubt. But again he just doesnt seem like he even he even wants to fight anymore. Guess we will find out soon enough

So, BJ is 8-1-1 as a lightweight in the UFC. Kenny Florian is 7-1 as a lightweight in the UFC. If Kenny beats BJ, and defends just one more time, Kenny would have a better UFC legacy. I've always thought BJ was as overrated as it gets, but I hope Kenny will prove me right.

Look at who both fighters have fought and beaten at LW boys

tolivendiewithLA wrote:

Look at who both fighters have fought and beaten at LW boys

But tied to the point in question is Penn losing. And if Florian wins then Penn will be on his win record, while Flo will not be in Penn's.

tolivendiewithLA wrote:

Look at who both fighters have fought and beaten at LW boys

If Kenny beats BJ, that'll be a nice little feather in his cap.

captain organic wrote:

tolivendiewithLA wrote:

Look at who both fighters have fought and beaten at LW boys

But tied to the point in question is Penn losing. And if Florian wins then Penn will be on his win record, while Flo will not be in Penn's.

You beat me to it.

So is Sherk better than KenFlo cause he destroyed Kenny? And has a better record while beating better fighters, Doesn't even matter BJ is gonna dominate

tolivendiewithLA wrote:

So is Sherk better than KenFlo cause he destroyed Kenny? And has a better record while beating better fighters, Doesn't even matter BJ is gonna dominate

If he had beaten him recently, and Florian hadn't gotten better, I'd say yes. But it's been a long time since Florian lost to Sherk. Since that loss, Florian has become the hardest working lightweight in the business. And I think he's become the best lightweight. Kenny's gonna be a great champ, and when all is said and done, he'll be the best lightweight ever.

Bottom line is BJ needs this win. I agree that the GSP was a "legacy type" fight but I dont think it ruined his legacy or anything. I think it wouldve cemented it a lil more. Im not a Penn fan but he did beat Hughes when he had no shot at doing so & has backed it up a lot since then and at 2 weight classes. Legacy wise the GSP fight was more important than this one will be

IMO Penn is still going to go down as one of the best. i'm guessing he's going to win this fight against kenny and then beat diego. After he does that i think he will go down as the best LW in history and one of the p4p best.

See I don't see him beating Diego. Deigo will have the size advantage that GSP had and will push at a pace Penn hasn't seen yet.

CombatSports4Life wrote:

IMO Penn is still going to go down as one of the best. i'm guessing he's going to win this fight against kenny and then beat diego. After he does that i think he will go down as the best LW in history and one of the p4p best.

If he does that then it will go a long way to cementing his legacy. That will be 3 straight title defenses and if he beats those guys he will probably string together a couple more as they are definitely tops in the division.

I still wish somehow he and Aoki could get it on.

Bigs03 wrote:

CombatSports4Life wrote:

IMO Penn is still going to go down as one of the best. i'm guessing he's going to win this fight against kenny and then beat diego. After he does that i think he will go down as the best LW in history and one of the p4p best.

If he does that then it will go a long way to cementing his legacy. That will be 3 straight title defenses and if he beats those guys he will probably string together a couple more as they are definitely tops in the division.

I still wish somehow he and Aoki could get it on.

+1 if he beats those 2 guys then yeah he's back to golden. But a loss against Flo and I wouldn't consider him top shelf, cause there are a fair amount of guys out there who have clearly accomplished more.

Remember kids: BJ Penn is fat.

Farmer1906 wrote:

See I don't see him beating Diego. Deigo will have the size advantage that GSP had and will push at a pace Penn hasn't seen yet.

diego won't have nearly as much size on bj as GSP did you can bank on that.

tolivendiewithLA wrote:

So is Sherk better than KenFlo cause he destroyed Kenny? And has a better record while beating better fighters, Doesn't even matter BJ is gonna dominate

^^^^^^^^what he said

I honestly hope Bj gets his ass in shape and finishes his career the way he started it (ok, after the Florian fight). Bj used to be a motivated, in-shape, wrecking ball, and now he's nothing more than a fat shell of his old self. Moving up in weight is the worst thing he ever did. He's never gotten his weight back under control, and his ego has is more inflated than Tito's head.