Fighting Style
Jay Dee Penn was born on December 13, 1978 in Kailua, Hawaii, Penn is an American professional mixed martial
arts fighter and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu practitioner who is at this time the Ultimate Fighting
Championship (UFC) Lightweight Champion. Starting at the age of seventeen, Penn began training in
Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu after being introduced to it by his neighbor, Tom Callos, Callos had put up fliers
in local gyms looking for people to train with, and BJ's father Jay Dee Penn had rung Callos and said
his boys were interested. Callos then taught BJ and his brother what he knew. In 1997 Penn began
training Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu under Ralph Gracie, ultimately earning his purple belt from Gracie. At
that point he moved to Nova União where he was sooner or later awarded his black belt in 2000 by
Andre Pederneiras. A few weeks later he became the first non-Brazilian to win the black-belt division of
the World Jiu-Jitsu Championship held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Despite the fact that most people
need a decade or more to become a black belt, Penn had, with only three years of training, not only
received a black belt but defeated people who had been training their entire lives on his way to winning
the World Jiu-Jitsu Championship.
