B.J. Penn’s legal woes continue to mount in his post-fighting life.
The former UFC lightweight and welterweight champion was arrested Saturday in Honokaa, Hawaii, for driving under the influence, according to ESPN. He was released pending an investigation, per the report.
The arrest is the latest in a series of troubling incidents for the MMA pioneer. A separate DUI investigation was conducted by the Hawaii Police Department last February, according to reports, but Penn was never charged.
There is a video circulating on social media that appear shows Penn shouting obscenities as officers seat the handcuffed 42-year-old in a squad vehicle. It is unclear if that video is related to Saturday’s arrest.
Before that, videos posted online showed Penn, who once was among the top pound-for-pound fighters in his sport, getting into a bar fight in August 2019. The UFC released him the following month after spending most of 18 years with the promotion.
Declaring in the aftermath of the video that Penn, a native of Hawaii, would not compete again in the octagon, UFC president Dana White told ESPN at the time the ex-champion must get his affairs in order outside the cage.
“After what I saw in that video, BJ needs to, you know, he needs to focus on his personal life before he thinks about fighting,” White said.
Before the brawl that prompted his termination by UFC, Penn was slapped with a restraining order by estranged girlfriend Shealen Uaiwa, with whom he has two children, in February 2019. The order was reported at the time to expire this October.
In January 2015, Penn was arrested for an altercation at a Hawaii hotel. At the time, he had been retired from MMA.
Penn, once the face of the UFC’s lightest weight class in the days before the promotion expanded below 155 pounds in 2011, had once held a 15-5-1 record. A rash of losses over the final 10 years of his career, the final one coming by decision against Clay Guida in May 2019, left him with a final record of 16-14-2. His last victory came by knockout over fellow UFC Hall of Famer Matt Hughes on Nov. 20, 2010.
