Originally Posted by LazyFatass
My understanding about P4P is that it is who is the best fighter at their weight class, not who has fought against heavier or lighter opponents. Someone is ranking in P4P based not only on their own skills, but on their opponents and their fights. Someone can be 30-0, but if those fights end all by lame decision, they probably won't be at the top of P4P rankings.
Not just how someone fights their competition, but also their competition themselves. If someone builds up a huge record beating weak or unskilled opponents, it's not going to rank them at the top. That's why the rankings are always filled with guys like GSP, Penn, Fedor, and Anderson Silva. For the most part, they've all faced the toughest competitors in their divisions (everyone has a few they haven't faced - Fedor hasn't fought Mir, Arlovski, Barnett, or Couture. Anderson hasn't fought Mousasi, Maia, GSP hasn't fought Alves or Shields, Penn hasn't fought Florian, Aoki, Alvarez, Hansen, Calvancante, etc). But it's hard to say that someone like Lyoto Machida has been completely dominant over his opponents, and that he's faced the toughest people out there, considering he hasn't fought Rampage, Evans, Griffin, W. Silva, Liddell, Jardine, etc.
Anyway, BJ Penn deserves a LOT of respect for his skills. I'm a huge GSP fan, but you have to respect BJ Penn and his abilities and talents, or you just flat out don't know who BJ Penn is.
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