BJ Penn’s Coach Talks Gameplan For Frankie Edgar, Says Fight Was ‘Sad To Watch’

UFC legend BJ Penn took a nasty TKO loss at the hands of Frankie Edgar last night, sealing the pair’s trilogy of fights and wrapping up a 13-year MMA career. There isn’t much more to say about the fight itself, except it was very hard to watch. A lot of people noted that Penn wasn’t himself in the fight, and it was obvious from the jump that Edgar was too much for him.

With some insight on the gameplan for the fight is Penn’s coach Jason Parillo, as he talks with MMAHeat.com:

“BJ went out there and didn’t do what he wanted to, I think that in MMA your mind tells you one thing and your body is telling you another. He was tense, it’s hard to say, for this camp I spoke with him a lot, and he has been hungrier than I’ve seen him in five years. I believe he could have done it, he wanted to try and fight again, and I wanted to try with him. It was his last fight, but who knows with BJ, maybe not”

Penn’s retirement from MMA came following a seemingly lacklustre performance against ‘The Answer’, but Parillo feels that BJ wanted to have Edgar in his guard, and wanted to finish him from there:

“The camp was very successful, he was tearing through top 10 guys in camp, really high level guys. There was a plan behind it, but Frankie is so fast and has a lot of wrinkles in his game. From what I heard in camp, he was banging people up from his back, so that was his gameplan. I know that BJ has the ability to beat Frankie, and so it was sad to watch him lose like that.”

It is always hard to watch a legend of combat sports go out in such a nasty way, reminiscent of Chuck Liddell, Randy Couture, Fedor Emelianenko and so many others, Penn has succumbed to the type of violence that he used to dole out by the bucket. Gameplan aside, Penn just didn’t have the speed to compete against Edgar, but at the very least he knows when to call it quits.

There was never any doubt in my mind that BJ could have beaten Edgar last night, but the cold fact is that I never would have bet money on him winning. The odds, this time, were just stacked far too high on the former two-weight champion.