#4 BJ Penn
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B.J. Penn is a former UFC Lightweight (LW/155 pound) and former UFC Welterweight (WW/170 pound) world champion. Penn, who belongs to a rich and influential family based out of Hawaii, got into MMA not for the money but to simply test his martial arts skills.
Penn started off as a BJJ savant but moved on to knocking people out with his high-risk style of boxing in the pocket. Penn, in the early stages of his career, displayed good as well as bad showings of sportsmanship in MMA.
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He often came off as cocky and disrespectful towards his opponents, especially during the height of his popularity in his sagas against Matt Hughes and Georges St. Pierre. Penn has not been criticised much for his fight tactics inside the Octagon, however, outside the cage, it’s a whole different story.
B.J. Penn has an infamous reputation of getting into street fights with everyone, right from total strangers to his close friends. One of the most notable examples of this anti-social behaviour on Penn’s part is his parking lot brawl that left his friend with a fractured left eye socket.
His friend, Kuuipo Mokiao, informed the authorities that he had stopped Penn from picking a fight with another group of persons outside the bar that they were drinking in. Penn then turned on his friend.
Penn punched him all of a sudden and then struck him with a knee to the head. This lead to Mokiao’s hospitalisation in the emergency room of the Maui Memorial Medical Center. Besides this, in 2007, Penn pleaded no contest to assaulting a Honolulu police officer.
Penn was also involved in a large fight outside Waikiki’s Zanzabar nightclub in 2005.
Most recently, Penn’s former employee and close confidante Pedro Carrasco accused him of having assaulted his girlfriend in Hawaii. The victim filed a complaint in February of 2016, the alleged assault had taken place in the year 2015.
Investigations in that matter are still underway. Considering the list of complaints against Penn, it comes as a surprise that Penn, almost always, claims to be the victim. He does so even in cases where he, clearly, is in the wrong.
