BJ Penn has given up "Professional" training

[rearea]

“I just gave up training professionally for a fight,” he said. “Either you’re a fighter, or you’re not. And every time I train professionally I just get so burned out that I don’t want to do it anymore. So I’m just gonna be in shape and train kinda like how I used to train when I won the jiu-jitsu world championships – just go there in the night, train, and go home. I’m not gonna go push myself to go running and do these thousand rounds of sparring and stuff. I fight best when I’m having a good time and after my last fight I was so burned out by the time I got there that now I’m just gonna take it easy and have fun.”
-from article on UFC.com http://www.ufc.com/index.cfm?fa=news.detail&gid=3161


Does this concern anyone besides me? Fighting someone like Hughes who at this point is a machine when it comes to his training and conditioning....i was hoping BJ would bust his ass and show up in great shape ready to rumble, but i can easily see him gassing early now (3rd round or so) and getting dominated by Hughes late in the match. Disappointing to say the least.

Discuss.

[chris_prevails]

Sounds practical to me. I'm surprised more fighters don't/haven't done this.

[jakeharris74]

whatever works for him, but it sounds like he has discipline issues. He gets bored easy and wants to move on, doesn't have the desire to put in the hard work.. I don't know, whatever works for him though. I just don't want any excuses if he loses. "Well I was just havin fun ya know.. he won and I won't take that away from him but I didn't train too much, just went out there and had fun".. Fuck that.

[chamchamtrigger]

"I think not training is the best training".

Sounds kinda ignorant, if you ask me.

[andrewilbe]

If that's true BJ is gonna gas and get mauled.

That was kinda sad to read, really.

[freehatch]

Training is part of the fight. As a professional it is his job to do it. Sounds lazy to me.

[TheKingOfMMA18]

Sounds like he lost this fight already to me and I was really hoping he would become champ again. But I don't think that he can achieve that goal without the proper training.

[JustaBoxer2000**]

Penns ego is out of control. that's why we see him in a weight class he shouldn't be in. He's fighting at 170, where he's not even top 5, when he should be fighting at 155. it's pathetic and sad to see so much talent go to waste. I am thinking after he gets pounded out by Hughes, we'll never see him the UFC again..

[kjh_jelly]

I like Baby J and think that he is one of only 2 men in the world who could take Hughes title, however, this scares me. Yes I want Hughes to win, but Baby J need to be training his butt off.

1. You know that Hughes is going to come into this fight in the best shape of his life. He has truely become a submission artist here lately since the decision to Verissimo. (first fight after losing the title to Penn) In his last 4 fights he has submitted 3 of them, the only non submission was to Royce Gracie, and to give Matt credit Gracie would have never tapped. So Matt has become very good on the ground. (BJ is better)

2. Matt still is a great GNPer, he is much larger and stronger than Penn and would love to get him on the ground so he can GNP him. Matt is also improving his striking skills lately. In his last Pay-per-View fight against Gracie he said that he was finally getting better than Pat Militech at striking. (But again BJ is better)

Penn can beat Matt Hughes, He has already proven that, but beating Matt again would show that he is ready to be a true champion. And true champions train like champions. Matt will be ready for this fight but will Penn? If he doesn't train hard he WILL gas out, and if that happens Hughes WILL win.

[Potvin17]

Originally Posted by chris_prevails

Sounds practical to me. I'm surprised more fighters don't/haven't done this.

Surprised lol ? I wasnt gonna respond to the topic but not I will. BJ just realized that without steroids/HGH you cannot train 3 times a day 2 hours session for more than 2-3 weeks max before overtraining.