The music will be blaring, laser lights will be flashing, and the sold-out crowd at the MGM Grand Garden Arena will be chanting and cheering just before the main event of Saturday's UFC 94 mixed martial arts event at Las Vegas.

Inside his locker room, Hilo's BJ Penn will find inner peace just before he exits into the chaos.

Minutes before he takes on Canada's Georges St-Pierre for the UFC welterweight world championship, Penn will make a phone call to his father, Jay Dee Penn.

"I always call my dad. That's the last thing I do," Penn said. "There's so many things running through your head at that moment, it's just good for me to hear a familiar voice and feel close to home."

Lorraine Shin, BJ's mother, said: "BJ calls his dad 'Pop.' So he always says 'Pop, just letting you know it's my time. I'm going out there.' Then his dad always tells him to be safe and how important he is to the family. And the last words from both of them is always I love you."

At heart, Penn is still a Hilo boy. He is big on family, and has no intention of relocating to a bigger city — not even Honolulu — despite his international fame as one of the best MMA fighters in the world.

"I'm very humbled to represent Hilo and Hawai'i," said Penn, 30. "That's where everything is for me. I don't need to be anywhere else to have fun. Having a barbecue with my family at the beach, or in the backyard, that's fun."

Penn will carry the proverbial weight of an entire state on his shoulders into the octagon on Saturday. It is one of the most anticipated bouts in the history of the prestigious UFC organization, a clash between two current world champions — Penn the lightweight (155 pounds) champ, and St-Pierre the welterweight (170) champ.

Thousands from Hawai'i are expected to be among the crowd in Las Vegas, and millions around the world will be watching through pay-per-view.

Penn, who has Hawaiian ancestry from his mother's side of the family, has remained true to his roots throughout his rise in the sport.

He is not afraid to display Hawaiian flags on the T-shirts he wears into the octagon. His entry music of choice is the haunting but meaningful "Hawai'i '78" by the late Israel Kamakawiwo'ole.

"It's always good for the Hawaiians to have another voice out there," Penn said. "A lot of the younger kids, they don't really have anything out there telling them to be proud of their heritage. You can be Hawaiian no matter where you are. If I can send that message to them on a stage like the UFC, I'll do it."

'IT'S GOING TO BE CRAZY'

Hawai'i people don't exactly need to be prodded to fly to Las Vegas.

Throw in the combination of Penn's bout on Saturday, and numerous Super Bowl parties in the casinos on Sunday, and it makes for a lot of Hawai'i people in Sin City this week.

Aaron Shimabukuro, a private travel coordinator, said he sold his entire allotment of 500 fight tickets two weeks ago. He also helped coordinate the sale of 300 "BJ Penn Experience" packages with Panda Travel. The packages included airfare, hotel, tickets to the fight, pre-fight rally and post-fight party.

"And there's so many other people I know who made their own arrangements to get there," Shimabukuro said.

The Hawai'i contingent is expected to be in the thousands at the MGM Grand Garden Arena, which has a capacity of 17,157.

"It's going to be crazy," Shimabukuro said. "A lot of people don't even have tickets, but they're going anyway."

John DeFreitas of Panda Travel said the response has been impressive.

"I am genuinely surprised at the loyal following for BJ Penn and the sport," DeFreitas said. "The numbers aren't as big as UH football, but it's still good movement for this time of year."

CHECK BJPENN.COM

Penn is as adept at promotion as he is at jiu-jitsu. And he is considered a jiu-jitsu master, the only American to win a black belt world championship.

After an impressive UFC win over Jens Pulver on national television in June 2007, Penn's only comment during the post-fight interview was: "If you want to know what BJ Penn feels like, check out www.bjpenn.com."

An internet phenomenon was born.

"We got slammed — 600,000 people tried to get on the site right after that and we crashed," said Reagan Penn, BJ's younger brother and the Web master of www.bjpenn.com. "But because of that, we were able to upgrade and make it what it is today."

Today, www.bjpenn.com has more than 52,000 registered members from around the world. And counting. The number of daily "hits" is in the tens of thousands.

The site features training videos with Penn and other fighters, online chats, various contests, and MMA news.

Pualeilani Beter of Waipahu joined the site a few months ago when she found out fight tickets were being awarded as prizes. She wound up winning the "Pretty Wahine" contest earlier this month, and received a trip for two to UFC 94 this week.

"Everybody in my family is a big fan of BJ," said Beter, 23. "So they were the ones who convinced me to try it. But I had no idea there were that many people on the site."

The site is similar to www.myspace.com in that each member can create a profile page and socialize with other members.

"I've seen a lot of my friends from high school on here," Beter said. "It's amazing. All these people coming together for BJ Penn."

ECONOMIC IMPACT

At the Fighter's Corner — a shop that specializes in MMA products — on North King Street, Penn is a driving force behind business.

"The actual BJ Penn stuff like his T-shirts, hats, shorts ... that stuff has been flying off the shelves the last couple weeks," said Mark Pang, owner of the store. "But to me, BJ Penn pushes sales in everything we have. People, kids, they have literally decided to train and get into the sport because of him, so that means they're buying equipment, videos, other stuff as well."

At T&C Surf — a longtime Hawai'i business that has focused primarily on the surf industry — Penn T-shirts have become a best seller.

"We ordered 400 shirts and that sold out in less than a month, so we just ordered 450 more and that's going fast," said Ryan Sugihara, a buyer of men's merchandise for the shop.

Sugihara was a wrestler at Oregon State in the 1990s, when former UFC champion Randy Couture was an assistant coach there.

"I've known how popular MMA was for a long time," Sugihara said. "Once Hawai'i got a star, a champion, like BJ Penn, I knew we had to jump on it."

Pang said he will attend Saturday's fight and thinks a Penn victory will generate even more business in the MMA community in Hawai'i.

"I know I'm going to look into bringing back T-shirts from the event," Pang said. "People you wouldn't even imagine, random people, are into this now. This is a huge wave, and a lot of people want to ride."

FAMILY BUSINESS

Penn's success has transformed into a family business.

His oldest brother, Jay, is the manager of the Penn Training and Fitness Center in Hilo. Another older brother, Jay Dee, is the business manager. Younger brother Reagan is the Web master of www.bjpenn.com.

"They all know their roles and they support each other," said Shin, the mother of the four Penn boys. "We always taught them to take care of family first."

All four Penn brothers are black belts in Brazilian jiu-jitsu.

"BJ was always tough-minded, and I think he enjoyed it the most out of all of us," Reagan said.

The Penn parents were able to provide a "happy" upbringing for their sons mostly because of income earned through commercial real estate (although Shin recently retired from a separate federal job).

The UFC Primetime television series previewing Saturday's bout described the Penn family as "among the richest families in Hilo," and St-Pierre is quoted as saying, "I'm not the one who comes from a wealthy family ... I'm the one who has struggled to be where I'm at now."

"Can you believe they said those things?" Shin said. "Our kids had the tools to do what they needed growing up in life. They were happy. But everything we got, we worked hard for. Did any of my kids grow up rich with silver spoons? Absolutely not."

PENN MATURES

St-Pierre defeated Penn via split decision in March 2006. Penn said the loss didn't really faze him.

"I was like, that was a fluke ... this guy didn't hurt me, this guy can't hurt me," Penn said.

Six months later, Matt Hughes defeated Penn by TKO.

"That was the fight that really changed everything," Penn said. "I thought I couldn't be hurt by anybody and Matt Hughes hurt me. My training, my lifestyle, my diet, everything changed after that."

Now, Penn said he is as fit as he has ever been, despite the UFC Primetime series hinting that he was not taking his training seriously for St-Pierre.

"Definitely not a true representation of how my training is going," Penn said of the series. "You'd have to think I was crazy to throw it all away at a time like this."

Penn went through a similar transformation as a teenager. He admits getting into "a little bit of trouble" at Hilo High School, and had to enroll in a home school program instead.

Penn graduated from the home school program when he was 16 — a full year ahead of schedule.

"I just wanted to get it over with, I guess," he said. "When I put my mind to something, I usually do OK."

But he said he got into even more trouble after graduating, which prompted his father to enroll him in jiu-jitsu.

"I did things I rather not mention. But when you're young, you don't always make the best decisions," Penn said. "My dad basically had enough, and he kind of forced me into jiu-jitsu to tell you the truth."

The rest, as the saying goes, is history. On Saturday, he has a shot to make history by becoming the first fighter to hold two UFC world titles at the same time.

"Everything worked out," Penn said. "I wouldn't be where I am today without some of the mistakes I made along the way."