Is the featherweight rebirth the re-rebirth of BJ Penn, or is it the re-re-rebirth? Let’s count the rebirths for fun: Post-Pulver loss, Lyoto Machida fighting, chubby Penn rebirth. The Welterweight rebirth. His rebirth back down to lightweight. His move back up to welterweight rebirth, and now his featherweight rebirth.
How many times can a man be born? We’re about to find out.
The news of BJ Penn’s latest return to the Octagon has just about all of us up in arms at the FightHub offices, but I’m all for it. As the kids say – YOLO, and I’m down to watch BJ fight, always.
BJ went on BJPenn.com Radio to discuss his return:
“I do feel kind of like a little bit of a rebirth type feeling, getting another opportunity like this to be on the Ultimate Fighter and going up against somebody like Frankie Edgar, it kind of reminds me of the position that I was put in with Pulver a few years ago (TUF 5) where he beat me, then I got to go on TUF and go against him and it’s just amazing how this all got put together. But, as far as The Ultimate Fighter show goes, we’re just going to have to let that work itself out. We’re going to see what happens. I’m sure there’s going to be some fun things going on.”
“The way it got put together, me and Dana were talking about fighting again and he asked ‘Why do you want to fight again, man?’ I’m like, ‘Maybe a couple good fights and maybe see if I can earn my shot back up and maybe get a chance to redeem myself against Frankie.’ And at that time, of course that wasn’t on anyone’s radar, BJ Penn and Frankie Edgar. I’m sure it wasn’t on Frankie’s. I was kind of thinking about it, of course because he beat me and I want to get another shot at him, of course, everybody always thinks like that.”
“Dana said he was having some problems getting the Ultimate Fighter show because they didn’t know if they were going to do it at 135 or 145 and it was going back and forth. He was like, ‘You know what? if you really want to fight Edgar, why don’t you just do The Ultimate Fighter?’ We talked about it and then now we’re flying up to Vegas next week to talk to Dana about it.”
