A point to consider about BJ Penn

There's quite a bit of doubt, largely revolving around the fact that he lost the fight in reality.

The only argument for giving him the fight is ignoring the fact that the only time he actually scored was after an illegal headbut that led directly to a huge advantage. No illegal blows = no offense of any note for Serra.

Thankfully the judges are better at their job than the ref. Had Serra won that fight there would have been serious reasons to have it declarded a no contest; he certainly wouldn't have won it legally.

 

They are all currently as dominant as each other but Penn`s consistency thru the yrs at LWT means he is undisputedly the best ever at 155, the other 2 are arguable if your talking best ever at the weight, they need more victories to solidify that claim.

 

You don't think that all time, GSP is the best 170 and Silva is the best 185?

 

Possibly but not as definite as Penn.

I think Hughes at 170 & Sakuraba at 185 have strong claims too, who at 155 can even pretend to contest Penn ?

 

They have all dominated their weight class lately. All have fought the best contender in their weight class. But there is more challenge ahead of them to solidify their dominance.

Penn vs Sanchez is a tough fight for bj. Sanchez is a big 155 lb fighter and has improved his striking to go along with his wrestling.

GSP vs kampman or swick would be a tough fight. Kampman has a big punch so he can be dangerous for gsp.

Silva vs henderson or marquardt would be a tough fight for silva too. Marquardt has improve since their last fight and henderson is still dangerous and is a big puncher.

 

I think it's ridiculous to say, at this point, that Hughes All time is a greater Welter than GSP. GSP has better fights against all of their common opponents (minus the Serra loss) and beat Hughes 2 out of 3. GSP has the better record, I think.

 

GSP has a better record, in fact GSP has a crazy records
Spratt(who beat Lawler),Parisyan,Hieron(good fighter now),Mayhem Miller,Trigg,Sherk,Hughes 2 times, Penn 2 times, Koscheck, Fitch and Alves.
Soon, he will have Swick probably.

The GSP of right now, would beat Hughes 99 times out of 100. No disrespect to Hughes thought, he was a great fighter. A pionner

 

GSP is greater then Hughes, anyone that says otherwise is just trying to grasp on to the past. He has a better resume, better performances against his opposition, more dominant over his career and is just the better fighter, can do anything Hughes can do but better, and he proved to be on another level H2H. He just doesn't have the championship wins, but they will come. He has also faced much better competition.

 

I agree nearly 100% with the original poster.

Penn at 155 is virtually unbeatable, the fact that he's not afraid of anyone and has fought a lot of his career at much higher weights, hell he fought Lyoto Machida in an open-weight contest when Machida was weighing 215 and Penn was 170. Thats the same sort of thing as GSP or Silva going up to fight Fedor.

Penn didnt just go up in weight and fight alphabet champions or bums, he fought the absolute best (gsp,mach) at higher weights.

 

Hughes was no.1 until GSP raped him twice. GSP is irrefutably no.1 for my money.