BJ Penn har inom den närmaste tiden varit involverad i ännu en krogbråksincident. En incident som filmades och läckte ut i två videoklipp på nätet och som ni kan se här och här. Det finns även en video från tidigare när han bråkade med en dörrvakt som också filmades. Nu har UFC-veteranen talat ut angående vad som hände i en intervju med TSN.
Penn förklarar att filmerna från TMZ inte visar hela bilden och säger att han gjorde vad han kunde för att stoppa situationen och undvika att hamna i mer trubbel med lagen än han redan är.
“Just to begin with, there was another video posted on TMZ of me holding somebody on the ground,”
”From that—because I’m in the middle of a custody case right now—I got a lot of slack already from the custody evaluator, from their lawyer, of course, from my lawyer. So the last thing that I’m looking to do—yeah, because everybody was saying that I held down a bouncer, but it wasn’t a bouncer or anything like that. It’s just something happened and I had to protect myself and hold a guy on the ground. So the last thing I want to do is get into any type of trouble.”
“My custody case, me seeing my kids depends on all this stuff. It’s just really strange how things just happen and you never see this kind of stuff. But here I am in a custody case and this happened twice.”
Angående de senaste filmer säger Penn att personen han slogs med då var en person han känner, men kunde inte specificera vad som ledde till konflikten och säger att han gjorde allt för att inte eskalera situationen.
“I’m at a concert going to meet a friend of mine that I knew since we were real young kids and I’m over there, and then an acquaintance of mine he gets mad about something,”
“You know, something was said or what or if it was an old past thing and then he wants to fight about it. I’m like, ‘Naw naw,’ we’ve got a lot of witnesses, everybody can corroborate my story. I’m like, ‘No, no, no, I don’t want to fight. We’re friends, everything’s cool,’ this and that. He even walks outside and I’m thinking, ‘Aw, this is silly.’ I’m going to go get him, calm him down, come back inside, we’ll come enjoy the concert, we’ve got some other friends there. I walk outside to go give the guy a hug and then he hits me twice. I’m like, ‘No, no, calm down.’ I try to give him another hug and he hits me a couple more times and then he hits me again—I wish they didn’t cut the video in half so whoever put that video up cut it in half, I wish they had the whole thing that showed me trying to hug the guy—finally, my adrenaline kicked up because he was hitting me so much, I’m like, ‘Go ahead, hit me again.’
“But really, I thought the guy would eventually just be like, ‘You know what? Forget it, B.J.,’ give me a hug or whatever, walk away. He hit me and he hit me good. Knocked me down. And then when I got back up he tried it again and then I just had to defend myself. So that’s what you see in the second video.”
Trots sina problem med lagen är Penn bokat att möta Nik Lentz senare i år. En match som nog antagligen blir hans sista i oktagonen. Vilket han också hänvisar till som ett bevis till att han inte sökte några problem och verkligen försökte stoppa situationen.
“The last thing I’m trying to do is trying to look to go out into a fight,”
“Ask anybody who knows me, I’m not the first guy to go around and just start pushing people. I’m an older guy too and I just want to enjoy my life and I was thinking today, driving around, why don’t I have two bodyguards on the sides of me at all times just making sure it’s impossible I can get into any trouble. I was thinking that all morning.
“I just have so much things going on, my last fight I’m supposed to be taking care of, I’m jumping into training camp right now, and just a lot of things. A lot of things going on, a lot of things in the mind right now.”
Penn erkänner dock att han druckit, men inte exakt hur mycket.
“Definitely, I had two drinks when I got over there. But all those old past grudges, that’s what happened with that last situation. I don’t know, I heard so much things from so much different people of why that happened. All I know is what exactly happened.
“He hit me—I don’t know, you don’t know how much times you’re getting hit when you’re getting hit. I would have said I would have got hit eight-to-10 times or something like that and just, I don’t know, I don’t want to comment on what that guy was doing. I didn’t see everything he was doing. He was there before I got there. But what a situation.”
BJ Penn anses inte bara vara en veteran i UFC, utan även en legend i MMA. Dock har det på senare tiden inte gått speciellt bra för honom tävlingsmässigt då han inte har en enda vinst sedan 2010, vilket innebär hela sju raka förluster. Vi får se efter matchen med Lenz om Penn kan avsluta sin karriär med en vinst eller om även sista matchen blir en förlust.
