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BJ Penn’s comments about the way the MMA media covered the GSP greasing scandal
By Zach Arnold | July 29, 2009
BJ Penn was in rare form on Tuesday’s UFC conference call to promote his fight against Kenny Florian on August 8th in Philadelphia. As you can hear in this clip put on YouTube by Steve Cofield from the conference call, Penn is asked a couple of questions by Steven “Tom Hamlin” Marrocco from MMA Weekly. Not only is Penn still fixated on the greasing scandal, he’s also attacking the media for reporting on… what his own lawyer wrote and sent to them in documentation form.
TRANSCRIPT
Q: “I’ve been noticing that you’ve been doing a lot more posting obviously on your personal web site and less interviews with the media. Is there a specific reason for that or?”
BJ Penn: “Yeah, I just you know I’ll do any media that I’m contracted under with the UFC, you know, they’re my boss and this and that but I just didn’t like how the media portrayed me after the GSP fight. I didn’t like how MMA Weekly portrayed me after the GSP fight and I don’t know as far as that goes and that’s just it, man, I don’t like how Sherdog, how MMA Weekly, how MMA Junkie and how all you guys portrayed me after the GSP fight and I’m done doing you know, I’m done working with you guys.”
Q: “How do you feel we portrayed you?”
BJ Penn: “You know, Raffi (Nahabedian – Penn’s attorney), he send you guys the… he sent you my complaint to the Nevada athletic commission and Raffi’s a pretty high-strung guy and he went in and he added in that uh, of course it wasn’t my doing, I never even heard of a pill that could make someone greasy, Raffi went and added that in and that’s all you guys wanted to report, “Penn files a complaint, says GSP took a pill that made him greasy,” you guys didn’t want to report on anything else that we warned the commission before the fight, you didn’t want to report on anything, you guys got to remember when Ryan Bennett died our family, my family donated how much stuff for you for MMA Weekly, we kept doing stuff, we keep doing things for MMA Weekly because of our love for Ryan Bennett and that’s how you go and treat us? But whatever, I’m done with you guys.”
END
Here is Marrocco’s article on Penn about what he said on the conference call.
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 14 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
UFC 101 should be a historic event, we will see 2 top fighters go down in flames because they are worried about things outside of their fights.
Penn and Anderson are going to be a great example as to why no matter how talented you are, when you aren’t focused on your opponent you are going to get beat.
[…] -Via FightOpinion, which has the rest of the exchange transcribed. No Comments […]
How does BJ Penn change a lightbulb? He stands still and the whole world revolves around him.
I really, really can’t stand that guy. He literally requires you to kiss his ass 24/7 otherwise he thinks you’re disrespecting him.
So BJ just implied that because he donated money when Ryan Bennett was killed in that car accident, he should only get positive media coverage. That’s unreal.
BJ is right. GSP cheated. There is no difference between what GSP did and what Antonio Margarito did. Both cheated in a way that made them much more dangerous to their opponents. Margarito cheated to make his punches harder and to do more damage. GSP cheated to be able to rain down elbows on BJ’s head with impunity, knowing that BJ would believe in his jiu-jitsu to protect him, unaware that his world class ground skills had been entirely rendered useless due to the fact that GSP was incredibly and illegally slippery. The NSAC has no balls; if they did they would have suspended GSP for at least 6 months, and certainly should have suspended Nurse and Jackson for at least a year.
“So BJ just implied that because he donated money when Ryan Bennett was killed in that car accident, he should only get positive media coverage. That’s unreal.”
if that’s unreal then you should never enter the business world. it’s quid pro quo and it happens everyday.
“BJ is right. GSP cheated. There is no difference between what GSP did and what Antonio Margarito did. Both cheated in a way that made them much more dangerous to their opponents. Margarito cheated to make his punches harder and to do more damage. GSP cheated to be able to rain down elbows on BJ’s head with impunity, knowing that BJ would believe in his jiu-jitsu to protect him, unaware that his world class ground skills had been entirely rendered useless due to the fact that GSP was incredibly and illegally slippery. The NSAC has no balls; if they did they would have suspended GSP for at least 6 months, and certainly should have suspended Nurse and Jackson for at least a year.”
sounds like someone is still butthurt that their favorite fighter lost. oh wait no he didn’t just lose, he got his ass beaten down so badly that he was forced to quit when he wasn’t even in any danger at the time.
“if that’s unreal then you should never enter the business world. it’s quid pro quo and it happens everyday.”
You’re both right. It is unbelieveable to any reasonable person but also exactly how business works (for a lot of people).
If you go listen to the Bruce Buffer interview with BJ Penn on Sherdog (http://www.sherdog.com/radio/Radio-BJ-Penn-Joins-Bruce-Buffer-1102), BJ basically does the same rant and Bruce Buffer goes into epic ass kissing to butter up BJ, even though BJ is just throwing out pure babyish accusations as usual.
The thing is, Bruce probably wouldn’t even think he was ass kissing because as you say, that’s just how these people talk to each other. Their world is ego massaging ad nauseum – you can see it on every single Dana Blog and BJ has an entire posse of people following him around, telling him how amazing he is the whole time in his private life too (as shown in the pre GSP series 24/7 or whatever it was called).
“sounds like someone is still butthurt that their favorite fighter lost. oh wait no he didn’t just lose, he got his ass beaten down so badly that he was forced to quit when he wasn’t even in any danger at the time.”
Way to not even attempt to address any of the substance of my post. LOL at you saying he wasn’t in any danger at the time of the stoppage? What kind of armchair fighter are you to criticize a fighter for throwing in the towel? That is pretty pathetic on your part to criticize the toughness of one of the only two 2-division UFC champions in mma history.
I agree with David M. I picked GSP by decision anyway and think he would’ve won the fight regardless, but greasing is definitely cheating.
Yep it was the grease that dominated and made BJ quit, the only thing in this world more annoying than Penn are his fanboys.
It is unreasonable to expect any grown person to take responsiblity for themselves. dont you know that?
Besides you are right,(Mike,)if you have people sucking up to you all the time and telling you are great, and your life is unfair, and you lost a fight unfairly, then it becomes your reality.
Some of these fighters couldn’t spend one day in the life of the fans and people who they make their money from. Not enough (ego)Stroking and Sucking(up)!
“Yep it was the grease that dominated and made BJ quit, the only thing in this world more annoying than Penn are his fanboys.”
Are you calling me a BJ fanboy? Are you that insecure that you have to name call when anyone mentions a fact?
Fact: GSP most likely would’ve won the fight no matter what.
Fact: Greasing is cheating.
Why do people get so emotional over this issue?
[…] his performance a week or so ago on a UFC media conference call trashing the media for the way they handled the ‘greasing scandal’ involving Georges St. Pierre, BJ Penn […]