In my most humble opinion, I believe that Matt Hughes is completely done (stick a fork in him) in the upper echelon of the MMA world.
Matt Hughes is an awesome wrestler that knows a couple of jiu-jitsu moves such as the arm bar, kimura, americana and the rear naked choke as Frank Trigg knows all too well.
Matt has no stand up striking skills or any kickboxing/TaeKwon-do skills or previous formal training. That's a H-U-G-E G-A-P in the sport of MMA. As I have said before, Matt Hughes' pinnacle to his success was defeating a deflated former UFC champion in Royce Gracie. Both are similar in that they have seen the sport of MMA evolve then eventually pass them over for fighters who can easily adapt to change.
Georges St.Pierre(GSP) proved to the MMA world that the Matt Hughes era is now officially over and a new breed of a younger, dynamic fighter has emerged and raised the bar in the Welterweight division of the UFC.
Matt telegraphs his takedows which is why B.J. Penn and GSP were so successful with stuffing him and making him frustrated in their fights. Hughes will be fighting Chris Lytle at UFC 68 and this is nothing more than a set up fight by Dana "Don King" White not unlike the set up fight Mike Tyson got when he came back to boxing after a 4-year incarceration stint for rape to come back and fight Peter McNeely. Unfortunately for McNeely, he has also run into a bit of trouble as well.
Too bad Hughes isn't man enough to fight GSP to avenge his loss upon his return... the same goes for Rich Franklin who has also enjoyed the set-ups ride Dana White put him on too who will also not avenge his loss against Anderson Silva upon his return to the octagon.
These guys are bitches and it's all about the money. I hope both of them get their asses kicked for taking the safe road back to the UFC for ducking the real champions, GSP and Anderson Silva. They are still effective with plowing down up and coming fighters, it's just the real good ones that they can't beat mostly because they have been avoiding them for so long.
Here is a video clip of Georges St.Pierre knocking the chip off of arrogant Matt Hughes' shoulder with a high left kick in the second round at UFC 65.
On that night, a country boy died!
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Matt Hughes has Not Evolved as Fast as MMA
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I am not a Hughes fan but I do happen to love Rich Franklin. How can you say they are ducking GSP and Silva? Both of these fighters have contracts to fight the TUF champions and you can't wait forever to get back into the octagon. Also, it is Hughes who has easily the easiest fight on the card at UFC 68, while Franklin has his hands full with Jason McDonald. McDonald is no joke, ask Chris Leben. You can't say that they are "ducking" GSP and Silva when they haven't been given those opportunities by the UFC. I'm sure they'd both love to have a title shot right off the bat but the UFC has to fulfill its obligations to the TUF winners (unfortunately).
ReplyDeleteIt is true that the TUF4 champions have contractual obligations to fight the champions in their respective weight divisions. It's just a matter of when.
ReplyDeleteIt's easy for the UFC to hold off and have a Franklin/Silva 2 fight and a GSP/Hughes 2 fight before the TUF winners get in the ring again.
The TUF winners scored with a healthy payday by becoming the TUF winners and they have the bank to wait up to 6 months for their shot.
The business of the UFC comes before the sport of MMA unfortunately and the fans are held hostage waiting for B-rated fighters to fight the champions.
Because the UFC is not a publicly traded company, they answer to no one as they set up their fights strategically and not by any contention formula as they should.
Why isn't Matt Hughes fighting Diego Sanchez? Why isn't Rich Franklin fighting Kendall Grove who is the TUF3 middleweight winner?
There is marketing at play here and it's easier to sell the UFC in America with the faces of Matt Hughes and Rich Franklin than it is with Anderson Silva and GSP - both non-American fighters.
I like Franklin too however, why was David Loiseau mysteriously cut off from the UFC following his 5-round barn burner with Franklin which resulted in Franklin having pins surgically inserted in his hand following the fight and also The Crow’s 3-round decision loss to Mike 'Quick' Swick who earned his nickname for ending fights quickly?
There is so much more at play here than meets the eye and the propaganda that the UFC dishes out to us.
MMA Fever is not a lay and pray site, we press the action and demand quality fights from the UFC and we know they are watching.
Franklin's coming out party was at Light Heavyweight when he defeated Ken Shamrock. Ken is another fighter that hasn't evolved just the same as Evan Tanner.
Look at all the chumps Franklin has fought and really ask the question if Franklin was given a yellow brick road to walk into the Middleweight championship?
Sorry to say that Franklin's time may also be up and I suspect that Jason MacDonald will force Franklin to show us whether he has a ground game or not.
I agree, fellow Canadian Jason MacDonald is a threat to Franklin and I never intended to highlight him as an easy fight at all.
I'll write a piece on the Franklin & MacDonald fight soon so please come back and share your thoughts again.
Thanks!
That second hit was in the thigh. Matt Hughes got beat. Fair and square. Serves him right. No one puts GSP in the corner!
ReplyDeleteI'm not a fan of Hughes & somewhat am a Fan of Franklin, but I think you're way off on this one. The majority of people (myself included) don't want to see a rematch as the next fight. Look at how anti-exciting the Sylvia/Arlovski third fight was. I'd rather see the new champ defend the belt a time or 2 & the ex-champ win another fight or 2 before getting his shot again. Watching the same 2 people fight back to back is definately not something the majority of people want to see. I also highly doubt that if given the opportunity Matt or Rich would decline a rematch if it was offered by the UFC, so I'd say your "ducking" point is way off base.
ReplyDelete-Tim
I heard this expression the other day, "It's takes two to make a fight".
ReplyDeleteI am tired of people ragging on Sylvia. He's the Heavyweight Champion. Period.
Why wouldn't a recently dethroned champion chomp at the bit to recover the crown?
Why fight Chris Lytle of all people unless Matt Hughes has a serious confidence problem and if that's the case then he's lost even before the sound of the Hank Williams tune irriates our ears.
Don't think for one minute that Matt Hughes doesn't have the ear of Dana White. That is my counter argument if someone decides to pull the , Well, the UFC makes up the fights and the fighters have no say in it" - Hogwash!
That's true for up and coming fighters but certainly not for a recently fallen 9-time defending champion who beat B.J.Penn and Royce Gracie in the same year!
Huges brags about being a 9-time defending champion and he has hordes of fans that he has aquired over the years.
Aa a professional, doesn't Matt have an obligation to his fans to get back up on the horse and ride again?
I should think so.
"It's only my opinion and I may be wrong"
No offense Greg, but you are an idiot. You obviously don't have any idea of what your talking about. If you honestly think that Franklin and Hughes persistantly requested the fights they got then you are dead wrong.
ReplyDeleteFirst, after Matt Hughes lost his title to GSP, Matt came out and said straight up that he wants to fight Diego Sanchez next. However, the UFC already had plans for Sanchez to fight Koscheck and offered him a fight against Lytle. Second, if you think Lytle is some push over than you are dead wrong once again. A lot of his losses are to top notch competitors (i.e. Karo Parysian, Nick Diaz, Robbie Lawler)
To the next point, Rich Franklin didn't just come out and say he wanted to fight Jason Macdonald. The UFC's original plan was to set up a Leben vs. Franklin fight (Leben had a 6-1 UFC record prior to J Mac and both had recent losses to Silva) Although i will be the first to criticize leben as an overrated fighter, you can not by any means deny a 6-1 UFC record. When Leben lost to Macdonald UFC decided to just give jason Macdonald the shot to prove himself against a true UFC champion.
Being a TRUE MMA fan, I would not like to see both Franklin and Hughes come off losses to face the champions again. If they both were to lose again their UFC careers would be in question.
So before you go off on a rampage on criticizing Franklin and Hughes, try actually knowing what your talking about. THanks
I will certainly take that under advisement from an Anonymous person. After all, only an idiot would right?
ReplyDeleteUFC is an MMA organization - yes.
UFC is also a Business - yes.
UFC wants to make money - yes.
UFC wants to market the marketable faces and background stories of their most marketable for pay per view dollars - yes.
I think the UFC has done the right thing for themselves and they keep on doing it to TRUE MMA FANS.
ANONYMOUS the idiot said:
"Being a TRUE MMA fan, I would not like to see both Franklin and Hughes come off losses to face the champions again. If they both were to lose again their UFC careers would be in question."
If you are a true MMA fan, don't you want to see the best in the world fight, THE BEST IN THE WORLD!
Or is it that you want the dethroned fighters to go through therapy and counseling sponsored by Kleenex?
Get real, these are professional athletes that know the risks and they also have the ability to ask Dana White for a rematch to avenge the recent loss.
If both lost to champions then maybe their careers should be over IF they continue to lose past the two losses in a row, don't you think?
Then they would no longer be the best in the world anymore and have proven that they HAVE NOT EVOLVED with MMA.
Hughes' game plan going into UFC 68 is to "go back to what he was doing before" when he was winning. WOW, that's a shock and a recent revelation that surfaced long after I wrote this piece.
Lytle has the chance to KTFO of Hughes if Chris has the conditioning and the take down defense that B.J. Penn showed then bested by GSP.
I also wrote another piece on the fact that there is NO CONTENTION FORMULA for the UFC. The fights are put together to draw PPV numbers, that's it. Behind the scenes,the UFC protect their marquee fighters while actively marketing their up and comers to increase their PPV stock. Why do you think Dana White is giving so much bandwidth to MacDonald?
So if you want to see Cro Cop up against another human kicking post rather than someone that has the potential to beat him then you really are NOT a TRUE MMA fan are you?
It's about the best in the world fighting the best in the world and Dana White is still too chicken shit to make that happen especially since Pride 33 has the sack to do just that.
Why isn't Cro Cop fighting Sylvia straight out of the gate? You wanna know why? Because Cro Cop can headline a UFC event just by himself without a championship title shot and bring in a tonne of cash 1, 2, 3 times before headlining a 4th show for the title fight.
Marketing = Money = UFC motivation
Don't be naive to think that the STAR fighters don't have a say in their careers like Hughes and Franklin.
Without a contention formula, it's all about the Marketing and not the Sport.
Hurray to Franklin for beating Ken Shamrocked, Evan Tanner, Nate Quarry and David Loiseau as his claim to fame fights. Have any of those fighters evolved with MMA? Hmmmmmmmmmmm................
Hmmm. I am new to MMA Fever and found this article while reading through the others. Overall I must say I am impressed with the commentary here, but this particular subject kind of has me wondering how you came to the conclusion that Hughes has not evolved as a fighter.
ReplyDeleteI will be the first to admit that Matt Hughes is not a "complete" fighter by any means. He relies on his wrestling ability above any other ability he has and in 90% of his fights it has served him very well. You can't expect a fighter like Hughes to evolve in a weightclass that was (up until a few years ago) full of one dimensional fighters. Even then, he submitted GSP back in 2004 and avenged his loss against B.J. Penn (another unevolved fighter that continues to do well). Hughes lost to GSP fair and square, just like GSP lost to Hughes fair and square in their first match-up.
This is why I will admit right now that I agree with you on the fact that they should have their rubber match as soon as possible. I think that "Pierre vs. Hughes 3" isn't going to be the cakewalk for GSP like most people think it is. Hughes may be one-dimensional, but he has one hell of a competitive spirit. More so than I can say for some others (like Riggs, Cote, Smith, etc.) in the sport.
Why pick on Hughes exclusively? Tim Silvia is just as unevolved as he is. Tim's style has not changed since his UFC debut and look where it got him. He not only lost his belt, but he was beat down like a rented mule by a guy that was 13 years older, half a foot shorter, and 40 pounds lighter than him. The beating was so bad I really felt sorry for Tim. Until I witnessed that, I honestly thought Silvia could (with the right training) be a good match for Cro - Cop. I am afraid that now I think that his UFC days are numbered and we will find him down in the WEC with the rest of the has beens (like Riggs). I honestly hope that doesn't happen though because I'll admit, I kind of like the guy. I just hope he gets his shit together, ditches the Miletich camp, and comes back stronger than ever.
As far as Franklin goes, I am not really sure what to say about him. His loss to Silva speaks for itself, but his match up with MacDonald shows that he surely isn't unevolved. I am also eager to see the Franklin - Silva rematch as I think it is going to go a bit differently than their last fight. Don't get me wrong, Silva is one of the greatest fighters there is, but so is Franklin. However, this may be a pointless thought since Silva is supposedly fighting the King of Pancrase, Nate Marquardt, in July. That is a fight that will definitely be worth matching.