Two-division champion whose jiu-jitsu and boxing made him the lightweight benchmark of the late 2000s.
Jay Dee "B.J." Penn III is an American former professional mixed martial artist and 5th degree black belt Brazilian jiu-jitsu (BJJ) practitioner. A former UFC Lightweight Champion and UFC Welterweight Champion, he is the second of eleven fighters in UFC history to win titles in multiple weight classes. Prior to his MMA career, Penn was known as the first non-Brazilian to win the World Jiu-Jitsu Championship at black belt level. In mixed martial arts, Penn has competed in the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) and in K-1 in the Featherweight, Lightweight, Welterweight, Middleweight, and Heavyweight/Openweight divisions. Penn fought to a draw against Caol Uno in the UFC 41 Lightweight Tournament. Through his tenures as champion, Penn unofficially unified the UFC Lightweight Championship and broke the all-time lightweight title defense record. In 2015, Penn was made the inaugural inductee into the Modern-era wing of the UFC Hall of Fame.
Fighters who debuted in the Unified Rules era, from The Ultimate Fighter generation to the champions of the 2010s.
Two-division champion whose jiu-jitsu and boxing made him the lightweight benchmark of the late 2000s.
Portrait: Vanessa M. Forloine, Hickam Air Force Base Public Affairs · Public domain · via Wikimedia Commons · file page ↗
This inductee does not yet have a canonical row in the PropBetEdge fighter archive, so no archive profile is linked. Recorded as a backfill candidate; no fighter record was created.
Independent PropBetEdge tribute. Hall of Fame membership, wing assignment and induction class are credited to the UFC Hall of Fame; fields without a confident source are left blank rather than guessed. PropBetEdge is not affiliated with or endorsed by UFC.
