B.J. Penn came out and announced that not only is he training at the highly respected Jackson-Winkle John gym, but that he would be returning to action for one last run in the UFC.

The news was reported during an interview on Ariel Helwani’s show The MMA Hour. When he made this announcement he stated that his return fight would be on UFC 196, one of the most anticipated events of the year, and that he was in search of an opponent. It was just announced that his comeback fight will be not be at UFC 196, but pushed back to April at UFC 197.

Penn was very vocal on wanting to face Nik Lentz, but after some back and forth jabs between the two, it seems that due to restrictions on Lentz’s end, the fight will not happen.

The former two-division champion said that his bout being pushed back has nothing to do with a lack of opponent, nor him not being ready, but because matchmaker Sean Shelby advised Penn that it would be more convenient if he moved his return to April 23. “The Prodigy” said that he had an opponent for March 5, and that opponent will stay the same regardless of the bout being booked to a later date. It has been rumored that since Lentz has been out of the picture, that his opponent would be Dennis Siver.

The UFC Hall of Famer has made it clear that he is making a comeback because he believes he can make one last run at a title and becoming a champion one last time. He has been known for sticking to training camps in his hometown of Hawaii with training regiments that are odd to some, so his switch to train at Jackson-Winkle John in Albuquerque, N.M., shows how serious he truly is about this comeback. The Jackson-Winkle John gym has been known for helping re-surge fighters careers with names such as Andrei Arlovski, Alistair Overeem and Diego Sanchez. The last time Penn fought was in 2014 where he was brutally finished by Frankie Edgar in the third round via TKO.

About The Author

Jake Schneider
Staff Writer

Jake Schneider is a student at the University of Rhode Island who is currently looking to pursue a double major in Communications and Journalism. He is an MMA fanatic who has been following the sport for years. He began to share his wealth of knowledge and opinions on the sport to many of his family members and friends as well as various MMA forums online. His love and passion for the sport has been able to make many people that are a part of his life fans of mixed martial arts as well. His insight of the sport both inside and outside of the cage is what makes his analysis on fights and individual fighters so well informed.