Issue 166

April 2018

For five and a half years, B.J. Penn had to live with his loss to Jens Pulver.

Even as he went on to great things at 170lb and beyond, surrendering the 155lb title to ‘Lil Evil’ at UFC 35 still bothered him.

When the UFC relaunched its lightweight division and put it in the spotlight using The Ultimate Fighter, Penn got his chance to erase that defeat. After a tense six weeks coaching opposite his rival, he’d face him at the live finale.

It was immediately obvious that Penn had become the far superior fighter. Pulver was staggered and had his head snapped back by sharp punches and had to fight off several submission attempts. He survived for a little while, but when ‘The Prodigy’ took Pulver’s back, his time was up…

SATISFACTION

It wasn’t just that Pulver had won the first fight that bothered Penn. The fact that he never failed to bring it up in the TUF house motivated him for this encounter. “He just kept saying it and saying it,” he told. “I was just like, ‘I’ve got to smash this guy. All the wins and everything I did for the last five years was all for this, just to fight Pulver. Whether people say, ‘Oh you beat guys who could beat Jens,’ it didn’t matter. I wanted to do it myself. I had to feel what it felt like.”

STEP 1

Penn uses his incredible dexterity to isolate Pulver’s left arm with his leg, leaving him only one hand to defend the choke.

STEP 2

Pulver is tapping within seconds of the rear naked being locked in, but Penn holds on for a few seconds more, just to be sure.