The Prodigy, BJ Penn, is preparing to make his long-awaited comeback to the UFC on January 15, 2017, at UFC Fight Night 103, and appears ready to finally finish knocking out the legacy that has taken him over 15 years to build.
“When I started talking about a comeback, I told Joe Silva to send me any featherweight fighter on the roster. I have never been brutally knocked out before, and I thought that this would make a great final nail in my legacy’s coffin,” said Penn.
UFC up-and-comer Yair Rodríguez agreed to fight Penn after being assured by fight promoters that they were indeed serious and that nobody was fucking with him. Penn, a UFC Hall-of-Famer, appeared confident about his upcoming bout with the 21-year-old Rodríguez.
“You know, I thought that coming out of retirement and letting Franky pound on me for the third time would be enough to finish off my reputation as one of the greatest fighters ever, but it just didn’t quite feel like the end. What I really need is some young kid to knock me out cold in the first round. There is no way my legacy could withstand that kind of beating,” said Penn.
UFC President, Dana White, has strongly supported Penn’s comeback and says that the UFC is already making plans for Penn after Fight Night 103.
“We have got some big plans for Penn after his upcoming knockout defeat against Yair [Rodríguez]. We have already started working on a documentary called The Rise and Fall of a Prodigy. I mean, people love this kind of shit,” said Dana White in an ESPN interview. “Look at all of the success Mike Tyson has enjoyed since his fall from greatness: There’s the Hangover movies, thousands of hilarious internet memes, and that crazy YouTube video of him falling off of the hoverboard. That shit was funny!”
Penn is still considered by some to be one of the greatest fighters of all time, and at 38-years-old, he is looking forward to joining the likes of Ken Shamrock and Tank Abbott as a one-time great fighter who didn’t know when to quit.