Penn: I spent $22,000 on ‘Dolce diet charity’
Today BJ Penn spoke exclusively with BJPenn.com to refute those allegations and tell his side of the story about his experience with Mike Dolce.
Earlier this week Mike Dolce appeared on ‘The MMA Hour’ and gave his point of view of how things transpired during his time in BJ Penn’s camp. Penn had previously said that he would never hire Dolce again and Dolce felt as though he needed to defend himself. Dolce lofted allegations against Penn and his camp, stating that he had very little influence on Penn’s camp.
Today Penn spoke exclusively with BJPenn.com to refute those allegations and tell his side of the story:
BJPENN.COM: What happened from the scale to the ring?
BJ Penn: 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.