You don't like Mayweather because of his petulent behavior, but one of your favorite fighters is by all reports a bully, disliked by everyone who meets him and just an all round ****.
Mayweather is just an idiot who constantly boasts about stupid ****, gives himselfs nicknames, and all sorts of "look at me" ****. Hughes is just percieved as a bully because he has a bit of high school jock in him that I admit is a bit unflattering. You never hear him say how great he is or anything like that. People take him to be an ass because of things like telling GSP he would show him an armbar defense; too him that's just two guys joking, that's what guys do, they bust balls; to a lot of people it's a slight. Most of the time when you ask people for a specific reason why they hate Hughes it's something so stupid and trivial like "the look on his face" or something else complete vague or insignificant. Hughes and Mayweather could not be any more different.
Hughes himself disagrees with you. His book is basically a big boast about how much of a ***** he is; bullying people in college (when he was an adult), punching his brother in the face while he was driving, beating his dad up for no obvious reason etc. I like Carlos Monzon, I dont feel the need to pretend he wasn't a bad person. Hughes is an atg but hes a semi-literate scumbag and seems to have personality disorder. He's obsessed with his height as well, which might axplain some of his douchbaggery
Well the point in the books is how big of a change finding religion made in him. His religion is another reason he gets so much hate; while I find his beliefs absurd, no more absurd than anybody else who believes in a god of any sort. Once we start talking about invisible men in the sky, or magic, then its all crazy to me, so I don't care what brand of crazy it is. I don't know the man personally, but it seems that if you are friendly with him he will try to be likable, some people just find the way he does it to be abrasive; I think its pretty clear that he means well. A lot of it does come down to stereotyping; he is a white farm kid from the midwest, so automatically you call him a redneck. Redneck isn't the worst insult in the world, but there is definatly an element of race/socioeconomic/ region prejustice in it. A lot of the hate for Hughes has at least an element of that, and often quite a bit of it. People see a farm boy jock who was a bully in highschool and automatically attach every negative sterotype related to that, especially if the person was one of the types of peope Hughes picked on in, which a lot of MMA fans were that type of person. That makes no more sense than calling a black guy something insulting, but still fairly innocuous, maybe something like blacky; calling an Italian a Dago, things that aren't room clearers but still insulting at their root. The guy is not some semi-literate hick, he has a college degree, he is very business savvy, he runs his own gym/team, helps run a huge farm which takes a large degree of intellegence, and just generally conducts himself in an intelligent manner. To say you think he is a douchebag is one thing, it is even pretty easy to argue because of some of the things he has done. Personally I think it is just people taking him the wrong way because they already want to dislike him due to the sterotype element. To call the guy a scumbag though? Way, way, way over the top; getting in fights in college does not make you scumbag. He regurarly goes on missionary trips to Central America and does real work to help build schools, things of that nature. He doesn't do it for the publicity, he does it because he believes its the right thing to do. Look at the end of all of his fights, he is always respectful and even friendly, no matter how shitty (real or fake) the other guy got pre fight. He made a sincere effort to congradulate GSP when GSP beat him; some people will just say "well thats just because he got the **** beat out of him" but look at him after both Trigg fights, after the Royce fight, after the Serra fight even. Serra didn't deserve any respect after the **** he talked about Hughes, but Hughes was the one who went out of his way to clear the air after the fight was over. Serra is a much bigger **** than Hughes. There are some elements of the guys personality that rub people the wrong way, some are just matters of preference, but yea, some are geniunely douchbag material. But far more of it just comes down to peoples sterotypes; most peoples criticisms are things like "he looks cocky" "he acts arrogant" "he is shitty to opponents" which are either just absurdly self imposed by the critic, misunderstanding the guy, or simply not true.
One of the 10 best MMA fighters of all time. Great all around grappler, evolved from just a wrestler with strong GNP to a fine submission fighter. Im not a fan of Hughes but something has to be said for 9 ****ing title wins and him fighting everyone out there. Only a true warrior doesnt tap in that Triangle BJ had on him in the rematch or the RNC that had him turning red agianst Trigg. Only a badass takes fights with GSP,Alves,BJ ETC on very short notice. When I think of classic MMA moments so many Hughes moments stick out like the powerslam on Carlos Newton while he was being choked out or the beautiful armbar on GSP in 2004 or his incredible comeback vs Trigg in the rematch.
Seems like a hard working- pretty low key guy. He was great in his prime- unfortunately all good things must come to an end.:good
Erm, based on what? One of the best parts of his book is where he tells the story of how he was in abar with his brother and others after a ufc event, and his brother was complaining that the bathroom was too far away. Matt, being the low key rural gent that he is, decided the next time he went to the bar to get his dick out and **** against the bar. He did this every time he went to the bar. What a good guy
He went to a local community college on an athletic scholarship, he it not an academic He actually brags in the book about how he got A's without going to class or doing anything, because the school was so bad and would do anything to keep their athletes. He was at college with Mark Fiore, who was legitmately illiterate, couldn't read or write, and somehow got through college...
Well if it makes it better I do pour alittle dish liquid in the sink and run hot water to prevent any lingering smell. I have bad ankles and hate walking up stairs it turns my 21 years into about 80 real quick.
Love him for humbling Royce. A coworker of mine leading up to that fight was proclaiming BJJ the only discipline that mattered and flew off the handle if you suggested Gracie couldn't beat all the current titlists at the time in every division on the same night.
