what are your thoughts on hughes??? personally i think he is a complete original,a pioneer,an old school fighter and one of the fighters that got me into MMA... i personally rank him alongside the likes of couture and henderson,the fights with trigg and newton are classics and his wins over gracie,gsp and penn are massive accomplisments,you have to give the guy his props regardless of the redneck bible bashing ****! you gotta love the hughes slamdunk!!! i think he'l lose to renzo though,he looks pretty much done lately... [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_FqOd-kyQ0"]YouTube - Revised Matt Hughes HL By Hero1[/ame] wow,matt hughes as a baby!!,well we all have to start somewhere.... [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNahGvZow1s[/ame]
One of the ATGs, very tough, great wrestling, great submissions, great cardio. Hughes has won 9 title fights that is very impressive to me. Hughes is also a guy who fights anyone anytime almost I mean hes fought GSP, BJ, Alves etc on short notice. Hughes toughness though has always been most impressive like how he survived what Trigg did to him in the rematch or BJ and Churuto's Triangle attempts that where sooo close.
he does get a lot of **** though which i find rather strange as a fan of MMA.. he was the guy that got me interested in this sport way back.
He gets **** because of him being an *******. Anyone who gives him **** on his ability, accomplishments, resume whatever are total idiots.
yap i tend to concentrate on his accomplishments. i think there are bigger dickheads in sport though.
Yeh almost everyone who knows him thinks he's a complete ****. However he's one of the best ever in terms of accmplishment. His run in the UFC is unparrelled. The one thing that concerns me about rating his greatness, is its difficult to say how much he had slipped from his prime by the time he started losing regularly. Its also worth remembering even in his mid-30's he was only losing to top level guys. I have a suspicion that a lot of the top welterweights now woul;d have been just as dominant as he was. Still, thats speculation and his wins are on the ledger. As for him being a pioneer. He SHOULD have been very influential on other fighters styles, but for somereason he wasn't. Koschek and others should be fighting like Hughes, but theyre not.
Matt Hughes is a legend and one of the reasons I got into MMA. He's one of my top 5 favorite fighters and one of the people I admire most as far as work ethic and ANYONE who debates against his greatness or anything he's accomplished makes THEM an *******.
You certainly can't take away what the man has accomplished , he did very well years past but has not evolved at all in 10 yrs. His wrestling and takedowns combined with his great strength and cardio got him where he is today but he has been passed by and nowadays that isn't good enough to beat the top guys.
I honestly think it's his conditioning that has gone more than anything. In his later fights he looks small and doesn't appear to have the dominant strength advantage he was known for earlier in his career. He was also a very good sub fighter. He dominated Royce on the ground and probably could have subbed him but chose to win by GnP instead. Also he is the only person to ever sub GSP. Matt Hughes is the second greatest welterweight in MMA history, I think.
Couple things that come to mind when I think of Hughes.. I think, Strength, wrestling, submissions, intelligence, elitism, cockiness, and mind games. I think one of the under-rated aspects of Hughes was his ability to get into the minds of his opponents. He really used it to his advantage, on top of already being a fighter before his time, or at the cutting edge. Although I was very happy GSP brought his reign to an end, he really was a great fighter, many facets to his game.
Serra was the **** talker, he couldn't keep Hughes' name out of his mouth. Not to mention Hughes has earned the right to say anything about Serra's MMA game he wants; Hughes is a legend, Serra is a footnote.
Hes alright, accomplishment wise hes at the top right now. Legacy, I think GSP has surpassed him. As a fighter h2h, even though he only lost his belt 3 years ago and taking into consideration the rate of evolution of MMA, he'd lose to some fighters now like a Koscheck or Fitch even in his prime. A guy like Fedor 5 years ago would still beat a guy that will be a HW champion in the future, prime for prime. GSP is the same way, BJ at lightweight.
Didn't like him much due to his personality and perceived cockiness. I atually admire him now, and miss him fighting. Going back on his career, starting to think maybe it was just extreme confidence I was misunderstanding, and maybe him just trying to get into opponents heads before a fight. When I hear some of the stuff he'd say now, just makes me laugh. He was no doubt a legend and ATG in the Octagon. You have to respect his accomplishments. For someone who didn't have much standup, it's just simply amazing what he was able to do for such a long time, at such a high level. And he was exciting, which you don't hear said much about wrestlers. He was the best wrestler I've seen in MMA, and should be an inspiration to all.