Hard as it may be to believe, BJ Penn is getting yet another chance to dig himself out of his long losing streak by the UFC, and just as strangely he’s been given another challenging opponent in Nik Lentz.
TSN got confirmation from Dana White that both fighters have verbally agreed to the fight, and there is some history between the two as Penn had previously called out Lentz all the way back in 2014, resulting in a brief war of words, though the fight didn’t end up materializing and he attempted to retire instead.
At that stage Penn was already clearly in decline, but was only on a three fight losing streak.
However, he’d then return in 2017 and has since put together a convincing case for why he should never set foot in the Octagon again after racking up losses to Yair Rodriguez, Dennis Siver, Ryan Hall and Clay Guida.
It’s hard to understand the logic behind now giving him Lentz, who isn’t a world-beater, but over the same period of time has put together a 5-4 record that includes wins over the likes of Gray Maynard, Will Brooks and Danny Castillo, and has emerged victorious in two of his last three Octagon outings.
Besides his dismal record, Penn has also been in trouble outside of the Octagon of late, including being handed a restraining order by his wife in relation to allegations of domestic abuse, being accused of threatening a farmer with a machete and most recently being caught on video fighting a bouncer outside a strip club.
