Mike Dolce responds to B.J. Penn’s criticism: ‘I had very little influence’

B.J. Penn is retired from MMA, but still, conversations regarding his pre-fight preparations refuse to die, particularly after an all-time worst performance in his final bout.

Frankie Edgar (17-4-1 MMA, 11-4-1 UFC) utterly dismantled Penn (16-10-2 MMA, 12-9-2 UFC) at The Ultimate Fighter 19 Finale in July, a fight that marked Penn’s third defeat to “The Answer.” Even before the contest unfolded, it was clear Penn’s time as an elite competitor had run its course.

Following his fifth loss in seven contests, the former two-division UFC championgracefully walked away from the sport, but it didn’t take long for the blame game to begin. In an interview several weeks after the bout, Penn pointed the finger at famed nutritionist Mike Dolce and said he would “never hire him again for anything.”

Penn made the decision to meet Edgar at 145 pounds, a weight he had never previously fought at. To guarantee he made the featherweight limit, Penn enlisted the services of Dolce. The former two-division champ made weight without much of a hitch, but his comments indicate he wasn’t happy with Dolce’s methods.

Dolce did work with “The Prodigy” ahead of the TUF 19 Finale, but he said his involvement lasted only a few weeks and that his level of influence was minimal at best.

“It was really an odd situation,” Dolce said on a recent edition of ‘The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast. “Back when we filmed ‘The Ultimate Fighter,’ he was in the low 160s. Then they broke off communication with me after ‘The Ultimate Fighter’ was over. I didn’t hear from anybody from their team (or) their camp until the very end of May, which is just a few weeks before fight week. They were in a bit of crisis mode.

“I didn’t get to Hawaii to actually be a part of the team until June 9, which is less than a month before the fight. When I got there, B.J. said, ‘I weigh 157 pounds, but I went out last night with Dominick Cruz and I had some pizza, and I still weigh 157 today.’ And I’m thinking, ‘Oh, why the f-ck do you need me to be here?’ If you’re 157 pounds, you’re 10 pounds over what the weight class is after eating some bad sh-t.”

Despite concerns his services weren’t needed, Dolce set up in Penn’s camp. He did what he always does, he said, and attempted to refine Penn’s diet for the final stretch of his camp.

In this instance, though, Dolce said he would prepare food and provide input on the situation, but his suggestions would almost always fall on deaf ears.

“It was one of the oddest training camps I’ve ever been a part of, and I was there for less than two weeks, physically, in Hawaii,” Dolce said. “I had very little influence. I made some strong suggestions and very strong observations to members of the team about what I saw, what I’m accustomed to and what I think would really benefit him.

“The suggestions that I made, I made them officially, and they were accepted but not responded or reacted to. It was just a matter of that’s the direction he chose to go. He’s either going to win and look like a f-cking genius, or he’s going to not win and he’s going to make the oddsmakers look like geniuses.”

According to Dolce, Penn’s fight preparation was nowhere near what it should have been to compete against an athlete of Edgar’s caliber. With the match being Penn’s debut at featherweight, there was so much focus on weight that a lot of other important factors fell by the wayside, Dolce said.

“(I had issues with) the training frequency,” he said. “I don’t believe he was training enough. All the other athletes I work with train much more often. (He trained) once a day, but not quite every day. The type of training was less. I don’t know why there were no coaches there that were truly able to make influence.”

Another issue that sparked the ire of Dolce was Penn’s camp questioning his dieting methods. Statements were made that Dolce would keep Penn on a very limited regiment in terms of diet and food intake, especially during fight week. However, Dolce adamantly denied those accusations.

“A lot of the things that were said are factually incorrect,” he said. “He had a house full of food. I personally brought tons of amazing food that was available. He was two minutes from a Whole Foods right down the street. His house had 10 gallons of water in it, a gallon of coconut water and running water. There’s sea salt everywhere. I brought a huge vat of the power pasta. I don’t restrict anything.

“Again, I had very little influence, very little influence. I was more like a chef. I would bring some really delicious food, and some things would get eaten. Some things wouldn’t.”

Penn ultimately made it through camp unscathed and cut down to featherweight without much of a struggle. On fight night, though, his performance was one of his worst ever. He fought with an extremely strange upright stance and had essentially no offense before he suffered a third-round TKO loss.

Dolce said he’s more than willing to accept responsibility for his part in a fighter’s loss, but in the case of Penn, he feels differently. Dolce said his connection to the camp was so brief that blame shouldn’t fall on him, but rather Penn himself and other figures around him.

“We knew it was a very uphill battle,” Dolce said. “I know what happened. I know what my influence, or lack of influence, was. I will go down with the f-cking ship. Any athlete that works with me knows the type of person I am, and I’ve built a solid reputation with the industry. It was uncalled for, it was unfair, and I kept my mouth shut because I want to be a professional.”

Now that feelings from both sides are in the open, Dolce said he’s going to be blunt. He believes his services were one of few things that benefited Penn. He helped the Hawaiian make the final push to a weight no one thought he would ever compete in, and, according to Dolce, he did it in a healthy manner.

“I know what I did, and I think I was one of the only bright positives with true world-class experience that was around him,” Dolce said. “I didn’t have to be a part of that camp. It was very difficult. You look at the fight and what happened, it had nothing to do with food.”

For complete coverage of The Ultimate Fighter 19 Finale, stay tuned to the UFC Events section of the site.