30 greatest UFC fighters of all time: B.J. Penn ranked No. 12

They didn’t call B.J. Penn “The Prodigy” for nothing, and his accomplishments in the UFC are undeniable, which is why he’s No. 12 on our list.

The UFC is celebrating its 30th year and to commemorate the milestone, MMA Junkie has compiled its 30 greatest UFC fighters of all time. Every day until the anniversary of UFC 1 on Nov. 12 (1993), we will reveal one fighter on our list.

Today, MMA Junkie analyst Dan Tom brings you No. 12: [autotag]B.J. Penn[/autotag].

You can watch Tom’s career retrospective on Penn above; video produced by Abbey Subhan.

Also see:

About the list: All 12 members of our staff submitted their own individual 30 greatest UFC fighters list. Each fighter was assigned a corresponding numerical value based on where they were ranked on an individual’s list, i.e. No. 1 = 30, No. 2 = 29, etc. We took those numbers and added them up to get a total number for each fighter to determine the composite ranking of MMA Junkie’s 30 greatest UFC fighters of all time.