BJ Penn seems to think Rory MacDonald’s 38 stitch gash above his right eye is a poor excuse to use to back out of the UFC 152 fight, he believes that MacDonald is simply scared to lose to him, and that’s the real reason Penn believes he rescheduled the fight.

This would maybe make sense if MacDonald backed out completely, but the fight has simply been re-booked for another date?  How does Penn read that as being scared to lose to him? I guess Penn has quickly forgotten that he’s won exactly 1 fight since 2009, and that was against Matt Hughes 2 years ago in 2010. Penn is 1-3-1 in his last 5 fights. But he’s sure talking like he’s been cleaning out the division, taking on a similar tone he took on before he fought GSP for the second time, a fight that his corner threw in the towel to prevent their fighter from being abused by GSP in a very one sided fight, a fight he told fans that he was goin to “Kill” GSP, blah, blah, blah. 

I have nothing but respect for Penn, but sometimes he just seems to be in his own reality. While being interviewed by sherdog.com, Penn went on to talk about the reason he believes MacDonald backed out of the fight. As the good cats at cagepotato.com put it, “roll up your pants because the bullshit is about to get deep in here…” (transcripted via cagepotato.com)

“I know the reason why Rory pulled out on September 22nd. The cut is a detail but I know the reason why he pulled out is ’cause he knew he wasn’t gonna win. If he let that cut heal, tried to train, whatever it was, whether he should have been in shape already…I’ve never heard of a guy pulling out of a fight 10 weeks early from a cut. [Ed. note: It was actually seven weeks early, but you can't blame Penn for rounding up in order to make a point.] Never in my life have I heard of a guy, 10 weeks before a fight, he got cut, he pulled out. You know what I mean? He feels he has to do what’s best for him, for his team, they’re gonna do that, but it’s 100 percent fact that the reason why they pulled out is because they knew they were gonna lose on September 22nd. If not, you wouldn’t pull out.

Like I said, I had a cut on my eye, 13 stitches inside and out five weeks before the Diaz fight. I didn’t care. Opened up from eight weeks, opened up every week all the way up to the fifth week before the Diaz fight but did I ever think about pulling out? Not even *once*. Why? Because I owe it to the fans, I owe it to the UFC, I even owe it to Nick Diaz to show up to the fight. If you’re gonna tell the guy you’re gonna go to the fight, go to the fight.”

I can appreciate trying to stay in a fight even if you’re injured, but why fight injured if you don’t need to? Fighters that care about their fans, their performance and thier job/career should want nothing more than to be 100% when they step in the octagon. Fighting injured usually means you’re going to lose, and will likely translate into a poor performance. Penn fought Diaz injured, and look at the performance he put in, he was so disappointed with himself he semi-retired. Hector Lombard decided to hide his injury and fight injured, he ended up putting in a TERRIBLE performance that really hurt his image, killed his 20+ fight winning streak and knocked himself completely out of title contention, all because he decided to tough it out and try to please his fans. Well you did the opposite by trying to hang in there.

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