I la-la-love the old days of MMA, and few fights capture my imagination more than BJ Penn vs. Lyoto Machida at a K1 event 9 years ago. Both men were fighting at ‘heavyweight’ and frankly, I thought BJ was winning the first few minutes.
MMAJunkie caught up with BJ to talk this fight with the man himself, BJ Penn:
“From my understanding, the fight got put together because K-1 called us and said Machida and them have a guy that wants to fight you. (They said), ‘He’s a really good street fighter, but no one knows him. I said, ‘No one knows him? Tell Machida I’ll fight him.’ Then it got put together.”
“I remember I had a game plan where I was going to go swing and try to knock him out when he grabs me and pushed me on the ropes,” Penn said. “I wasn’t going to use as much energy so I could get my chance to knock him out again.”
“I remember him kicking me so hard in my ribs one time – it was crazy.” Penn said. “That’s how the fight went and he ended up walking away the victor.”
