Ray Cooper III Fully Supports B.J. Penn's ‘Awesome’ Run for Governor of Hawaii

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Ray Cooper III has already made up his mind about the candidate to endorse at the upcoming election.

Professional Fighters League 2021 finalist and 2019 welterweight champion Cooper III (23-7, 10-2-1 PFL) believes his home state, Hawaii, needs a substantial change in leadership. That's why "Bradda Boy" will vote for Ultimate Fighting Championship Hall of Famer and mixed martial arts legend B.J. Penn at the ballot box. "The Prodigy" announced his intention to run for the position on his social media channels, claiming that "Hawaii is losing all of its freedoms" and that the Hawaiian people "need somebody to fight for us." It seems that the message hit Cooper III.

"I think that's awesome," Cooper said. "We need one strong public figure in our government because things go down here. It's not doing too good. There's pretty much on a lockdown, not really a lockdown, but there are some restrictions that it kind of doesn't make sense. The people who are in office right now, they're not doing anything for the people. It's just they try to impose their will on the people down here, and all this talk about these guys it's just putting stress on our people and our land. I don't think that it's right from what they're doing. I fully support B.J. to run for office and he has my vote and I have his back no matter what in this because we need somebody in there to fight for the people, and I feel that these guys that's running our state it's really taking a toll on the local businesses, they're shutting down planning stuff, and it's hard to live in Hawaii period. They're making it if not impossible to live here because it's so expensive over here, and yeah, it's just economically everything is going downhill for Hawaii. I can't wait 'till the election comes on and I believe B.J. is going to win that thing."

Cooper III is set to take on long-time rival Magomed Magomedkerimov at the 2021 Season PFL Championships on Oct. 27.

Tudor Leonte started writing about mixed martial arts in 2013 for Italian media outlets. His journey with Sherdog begun in 2018 and now he covers One Championship and countless European shows. You can follow him on Twitter @MrTudorLeonte.