BJ Penn will make his return to fighting against Dennis Siver at UFC 199 in Los Angeles on June 4th.
Penn seemed to have settled for retirement following a TKO loss to Frankie Edgar in his featherweight debut back in 2014. That was his third defeat in a row, though the other two had taken place at welterweight against two highly ranked contenders who would go on to fight for the title, Rory MacDonald and Nick Diaz.
Penn had initially hoped to return to the Octagon earlier in the year, but he was temporarily held back while the UFC conducted an investigation into claims by a former writer at bjpenn.com that the hall-of-famer had sexually assaulted his girlfriend.
The 37 year-old has now been allowed to resume his career though after police didn’t take any action regarding the claims, and a third party investigation was unable to find evidence to back up the accusations.
With that episode apparently now behind him, Penn will take a second stab at the UFC’s 145lb division against the 37 year-old Siver who is coming off back-to-back losses against Conor McGregor and Tatsuya Kawajiri.
Penn Vs Siver joins a UFC 199 card which is fronted by a title double-header, with Luke Rockhold looking to defend the middleweight title in a rematch with Chris Weidman, while bantamweight champ Dominick Cruz fights Urijah Faber for the third time in his career.
