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| BJ Penn circa 2001 |
In April of 2001, the 4th annual Abu Dhabi Combat Club Submission Grappling World Championship was taking place. Contestants included Vitor Belfort, Ricardo Almeida, Matt Serra, Genki Sudo, Jean Jacques Machado, Renzo Gracie, Royler Gracie, Saulo Ribeiro, Marc Laimon, Mark Kerr, Ricardo Arona and others.
But the young phenom who had just a year before become the first American to win a jiu jitsu world championship at the black belt level was instead gearing up for his MMA debut a month later at UFC 31; only the second official UFC fully put on and organized by the new Zuffa ownership.
The reasons for BJ making his choice have been chronicled elsewhere, but the question remains: How would he have done? BJ walked around then at about 155-160 lbs which technically would've had him contest the 66-76 kg division, but in his mundials competition, he had actually always competed in the 140s. I'm going to assume BJ would've skipped the higher division to let teammate Leo Santos (who ultimately came in 3rd) have his crack at it. Also, in his book, BJ talks about how desperately he had wanted a shot at Royler Gracie who had by then won ADCC twice and the BJJ mundials four times. So let's say BJ's in under 65 kilos. The roster that year included:
Royler Gracie
Baret Yoshida
Alexandre "Soca" de Freitas
Joey Gilbert
Fredson Paixao
Robson Moura
Mike Cardoso
Gustavo Dantas
Hiroyuki Abe
Takumi Yano
Naoya Uematsu
Martin Brown
Yoshinori Konishi
Mitsuoki Hirai
Jean-Neol Charollais
Konstantin Vrachez
Ultimately Royler would win, with BJ's fellow Hawaiian Baret Yoshida coming in 2nd and Nova Uniao teammate Robson Moura coming in 3rd.
To say this division was stacked is certainly an understatement. Royler was then (and arguably still is now) one of the most accomplished grapplers of all time. Soca had already won the inaugural ADCC championship and was runner up to Royler the previous year. Baret Yoshida was boasting a flexibility level to rival BJ's own, though he'd lost in competition to BJ previously, as had Soca. Robson Moura was a world champion as well, but would almost have to be subtracted from the competition in order for BJ to have gone in. According to BJ's own testament, Robson was ahead of him in the pecking order at Nova Uniao so if they'd had to work a match (as many guys in ADCC did), BJ probably would've lost the coin toss. Guys like Yano, Uematsu and Abe had been tearing up the Japanese grappling competition scene in events like G.C.M. Contenders. Gustavo Dantas had an impressive competition resume (though he's more remembered for his match with Baret Yoshida unfortunately) as did Fredson Paixao, who went on to be one of the most durable and legendary competitors for his special wrist lock submissions. Joey Gilbert was an absolute smotherer in ADCC, but lost handily to BJ a month later in his MMA debut ironically.
Still, it likely would've come down to Royler vs. BJ, particularly without Robinho in the mix.
So the question remains: Could BJ have done it? Should he have? After 2001, he spoke at length in an article in Grappling Magazine about wanting to do ADCC. I truly believe if ADCC hadn't shifted to a biennial schedule after 2001 (the next event was in Brazil in 2003), then BJ definitely would've had time between fights to give it a shot. His early MMA career moved very quickly, of course, so who knows what would've happened. Still, it's interesting that the guy BJ fought in his debut decided not to skip ADCC while BJ did.
A more interesting scenario of course involves a BJ who in 2003 was probably walking around closer to 160-165 lbs being a potential candidate to compete in the 66-76 kg weight class that introduced the world to Marcelo Garcia and featured such legendary athletes as BJ's teammate Shaolin, MMA opponent Renzo Gracie, old rival Fernando Terere, training partner Tony DeSouza, tournament mainstay Pablo Popovitch, defending champion Marcio Feitosa and others. There were rumors at the time that BJ would compete, but he was coming off his disappointing draw for the UFC LW title with Caol Uno and likely gearing up for his fight later in the year with Takanori Gomi, which would help anchor his brother's fledgling Rumble on the Rock promotion.
The idea of BJ in that 2003 66-76 kg field in Sao Paolo is a fever dream for many a BJJer. It's almost too much to wrap one's head around.
Thus the more probable scenario remains up for discussion: In 2001, could BJ have climbed the ladder to Royler? Had he done so, would he have been able to knock him off? A scant two years later, another flexible American black belt by the name of Eddie Bravo was able to accomplish the feat. Had BJ done so, I wonder if he would have so quickly followed the attractive lure of the UFC that Dana White and the Fertitta Brothers were selling him or if he would've headed to Japan instead carrying a defeat of a Gracie on his resume. Had he climbed the summit, but lost to Royler, would he have kept trying until he was victorious, devoting himself to BJJ for another two years?
While I've loved his MMA career, a part of me so dearly wishes he had.
