Name: BJ Penn on Reflects on His Career and Retirement
Uploaded: 2022-04-27T17:19:09.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'BJ Penn on Reflects on His Career and Retirement' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-04-27. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'BJ Penn on Reflects on His Career and Retirement' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-04-27. Transcript available.

- The Joe Rogan Experience.
- Are you done?
Are you done fighting 100%?
- I'm done.
- You're done?
- I'm done 100%.
And it was hard for me to get out
after being in there for 20 years.
I mean, that's your identity, you know?
And then I just kinda got into trying to be a father,
you know, and I was doing that thing,
try to be around more.
And then all this stuff happened
and I find myself in here.
But I do think all the blood, all the tears,
all the sweat, all the ups and downs,
all the good media, all the bad media,
all of that was to prepare me for, you know,
for this kinda, you know?
I see like everything that they're gonna throw at me,
I can kinda see like, well, I could have been through that.
- Yeah.
Yeah, the mental warfare,
the mental warfare that a fighter has to go through.
I mean, my God, there's nothing like it.
- There's nothing like it in all sports.
- And, you know, when I first got it,
decided to get into this, I was like, you know,
I haven't, I was just retired.
So I wasn't trying to keep my everything, you know,
perfect in public and this,
and I was just running around trying to,
I was just a guy trying to come off of a 20 year,
a journey of being the baddest man on the planet.
And then I, so it was tough.
It was really tough to get over, you know, that identity.
So as, as time went, you know, I was just living my life,
some more ups and downs.
And I say, you know, sometimes I was judged fairly,
other times I wasn't, you know, and--
- Well, BJ, when you were on top,
you were one of the baddest motherfuckers on earth.
You really were.
You were a guy who went all the way up to heavyweight
to fight Liotta Machida.
I mean, it's, I remember that fight.
I mean, you did some wild shit, dude.
And you were strangling a lot of fucking people, man.
And for jujitsu guys, like for all my jujitsu guys,
you were the fucking man.
'Cause you were a smaller guy who choked out Matt Hughes,
you know, who was so fucking good at the time, man.
And Matt Hughes was a tank.
When you got his back and choked him,
everybody's like, oh shit.
- Jujitsu's back.
- People forgot.
They forgot those times, BJ.
And you know, there was a run, like the Sean Shirk days,
Diego Sanchez days.
You were a scary motherfucker, dude.
You were a scary motherfucker.
You were tuned in.
When you were tuned in, man, you were something fierce.
I always tell people that you have to judge a fighter
by the heights they reached,
not where they fell afterwards or the up and coming fights.
You gotta judge them by the heights that they reached.
You're like a guy like Oliveira.
He's a great example.
He's had some losses.
He's been knocked out, but you can't,
you gotta judge them by the height that he's at now.
- 100%.
- You gotta be accurate.
And then maybe he can only sustain that for a few years.
Like Fedor could only sustain it for a few years.
At the tippity-top of performance.
- Yes.
- But you gotta judge them from that.
- Yeah, it makes me sick when people judge them by their worst performances,
you know?
- For you, your best performances were spectacular.
You had some crushing performances.
When you were training with Marinovic, and they got you in tip-top Magoo shape.
Dude, you were terrifying when you had that crazy gas tank.
Man, I did, I loved it.
You know, one of the Marinovic, uh, wait, what's, what's Marinovic's?
- Marv.
- Yeah, well, Marv passed away.
- Yeah.
- But Gary's at my house in Hawaii right now.
He's training some football teams or something, and he has to come down, and it's
great to have.
- How did, how did that connection happen?
Because they basically changed the way you did strength and conditioning, right?
- Yes.
- Well, how did that, how did this introduction happen?
- They, uh, yeah, how did it, my brother met, how did I run into them?
I forget how exactly, but I think my brother introduced me to them.
And, and when they, they were just geniuses, man.
And no matter how good you are, they were 50 years ahead.
I remember we were at, uh, in UCLA or something, and they had that, a little
cone pattern, and
they had me run it to see my agility, and Marv said, "Well, that's too slow."
And the lady said, "Well, how do you know?"
And he said, "Because I made it up."
These guys were just ahead of everybody, and they were the guys with the NFL
combine,
and everything was speed, because he noticed that, like, the strongest guys who
had the strongest
squat, the biggest bench press, and all that, they had the lowest numbers on
the field.
And then that's how we started to put in the agility, the speed, the movement,
the, the reflexes,
and going back, so they were, they were really ahead of their time.
- Yeah, it was wild to watch, man. They looked like they were torturing you.
- It was, you know what? Looking back now, I see everybody, and I look at them
all,
all, who eats the most at the buffet? The hungriest one. And that's the whole
thing, no matter what.
I'll look, and I'll just be like, "Is he still hungry?" That's the only
question I, or does he, yeah,
does he still want to eat as much? Because literally, a lot of these guys, they
haven't
ate filet mignon before, they haven't ate lobster, and they're still thinking
about what that's going to
taste like when they get, when they finally get the opportunity to buy that for
their family.
- Yeah, there's like a balance, right? Of how long you can maintain that hunger.
- Yes. - How long can you maintain that ferocity?
- Yup, it has nothing to do with who's the best. It's who wants it the most.
That's what it is.
And that's what I thought about, I mean, I kind of knew that about martial arts.
I mean,
you go in there, and you'd be, right, as quick, and as violent, and as
intimidating as possible
when you get in there. But believe me, I believe, just like me, even at my best,
I'm like,
what can I get, what can I do to make the referee stop this? How can I make the
referee stop this thing?
Because you're nervous, right? The hero and the coward, they're both scared,
but the hero's going
to step forward. - Yeah, you were a wild motherfucker in your prime, brother.
You were a wild
motherfucker. You were fun to watch. The Dean Thomas fight, there was a lot of
fights that were like,
holy shit. Nothing else mattered to me in my life at that time than being the
toughest and most skilled
martial artist on the planet. And just fighter. I didn't consider myself a
martial artist,
I just thought of myself as a fighter. I'll beat you up.
- You were certainly doing that, man. And so when did you, did you continue
that kind of strength and
conditioning routine, or did you stop doing it after a while? - People start to
fall apart in different
ideas and coaches start to fight with each other. And that's what happened with
that stuff. Marv kind
of went his own way. Because as you get six weeks out from the fight, your
boxing coach is screaming,
"He's got a spar! He's got a spar!" And then the other guy's like, "No, this is
enough!" And they start
going and then it has a reaction on you. - Let's explain it to everybody,
because this is the two
different philosophies. The Marinovichs believe that you already know how to
fight. All you need to do
is just get in ridiculous condition. And so they were just going to put you
through that. And what
did you do? Like light drills other than that? Like hitting pads? Like what
kind of stuff did you do?
But no sparring, right? - But maybe not even pads. Just different things, speed,
a lot of good stuff.
We'd do ladders. We would do that water workout stuff. - And they thought that
that was more important
than anything. - Yes, and it was very important. I will never say that it wasn't.
And then on the other
side, people say, "Do you coach? Do you train?" I say, "No, but if I did, I'll
tell you what I would do.
I would show up to the gym, I'd tell another coach that had his fighter, and I
would say, "Hey coach,
can my boy get a couple rounds with your boy tomorrow?" And then I'd look at my
guy and go,
"Kick his ass tomorrow." And then I'd leave him and make him go home and think
about it all night.
Because the physical act of fighting, that ain't a fight. It's going home and
thinking about it all
night long. Anybody can get into a fight real quick in school, but when they
say, "Meet me at the park
after," and the whole school shows up, now that's the fight, you know?
- Or I'll meet you in four months for a UFC card. - Right, isn't that amazing?
- That's when it gets wild, right? When you're planning these fights months out
and everybody gets to
know that it's coming. - Yes, but that's it, sleeping with that.
That's what it's all about, sleeping with it, controlling it, internalizing it.