Mike Dolce has recently responded to BJ Penn’s criticism concerning his assistance preparing him for the 3rd fight with Frankie Edgar. It was a hard move down to 145 and one that Penn thought would be successful if he brought renowned nutritionist Dolce on board. Penn failed miserably in his 3rd attempt to get a win over Edgar and prove to himself he could still fight with the best of them. Now, on BJPenn.com he unloads on Dolce and finally dishes the dirt on what really happened leading up to his fight with Frankie.
“I hadn’t been to 145 (pounds) in 18 years and that cut was intimidating”.
“I wanted to get it right, so we brought in Mike Dolce, and paid him $22,000.00 for 21 days of service. That’s $1000.00 per day plus a $1000.00 tip.”
“There was no food in the apartment, and he (Dolce) never told me what to eat.”
That’s the first thing I thought after the fight, was that I should have just filled this place with food and not listened to Dolce. But when you pay someone that kind of money, you entrust them to do their job and take that off your hands.”
Dolce also stated that Penn’s training wasn’t the way it should have been from the start. A point BJ is quick to rebut.
“We trained 5-6 days a week. Cardio in the morning, I ran anywhere from 4 to 8 miles a day, and sparring/grappling and MMA training in the evening. I sparred 5 rounds at any moment. I passed all his treadmill intervals with flying colors, and I listened to him on every step of the diet that he gave me.”
Dolce publicly slammed BJ’s camp for having no quality training partners, and that he had to bring two in for Penn at the last minute. Again, Penn was quick to counter.
“He said he had no influence in my camp, but he brought in sparring partners, did my food and diet, and had me do his treadmill, plyometrics, and core routines. I don’t know what he’s talking about.”
“We had Dominick Cruz, Lowen Tynanes, Russell Doane, and the guys Dolce brought in, Nik Lentz and Mirsad Bektic.”
“He brought Nick Lentz in for 5 rounds, but he couldn’t continue after the 4th and left the cage bloodied. Dolce even walked up to me after and said he ‘knew I was going to win the fight because I just broke Nik Lentz’.
I don’t know why he’s saying my camp wasn’t good. Everyone I sparred with knows that I was well prepared, including the two sparring partners that he brought in “
There were problems before the fight that started after weigh-ins when a severely dehydrated Penn was already struggling to regain his strength. At one point they wanted to hook up an IV drip to BJ.
“I turned down the I.V., so Dolce made an attempt to rehydrate me in a different way that he does.”
“I woke up the next day (fight day ) at 150 (pounds) and I ate this much food for the 13 hours before the fight that day. (Shows Page from Dolce’s diet log)”
“Dolce didn’t come to check on me, or monitor my weight, and I couldn’t get in touch with him. I don’t feel there was any real attempt to get back to my sparring weight after weighing in.”
“From all my years of experience in the UFC, every second counts from the scale to the cage, and Mike Dolce didn’t share the same mentality as I did.”
“Dolce made every meal I ate the whole time I was there [in Vegas], and now after the fact, he says I should have went and ate my own food if I was hungry.”
“After the fight I asked him why he fed me so little on fight day.”
“And all he said was, ‘Why didn’t you go eat if you were hungry?”
“I replied, ‘I was waiting for the $20,0000 dollar man to tell me what to do.’, then he said, ‘Take your $20,000.00 back then.”
“I figured that paying this guy $1,000 a day, I could just focus on the fight and Dolce would focus on the food and weight cut. But I guess that was my job to focus on the food, and my weight, and the money was charity for the Dolce Diet.”