Former UFC welterweight champion Matt Hughes feels MMA‘s favorite bad guy, Chael Sonnen, will once again be defeated by UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva at UFC 147.
Hughes feels Sonnen has a one-dimensional path to victory that didn’t work the first time, so it won’t work a second time.
“I don’t think Chael can switch it up as much,” Hughes told MMA Junkie on Monday. “I don’t think he can do much different, to be real honest. That’s what he does, and that’s what he’s going to do again, probably.”
The Hillsboro, Illinois native also expects a more prepared champion to be a dangerous thing for “Uncle Chael.”
“And Anderson will be more ready for it this time than he was last time, so we’ll see Chael maybe getting hit a few more times this time.”
Interestingly, Hughes does not attribute “The Spider’s” rib injury to the success the fellow All-American collegiate wrestler had in the first fight at UFC 117.
“Nobody goes out there 100 percent,” Hughes said on the set of UFC Tonight on FUEL TV. “It just doesn’t happen. So he might have been injured, but in the middle of a fight, you’re not sitting there thinking about your rib. You’re just not.”
At the end of the day, Hughes reiterated Sonnen’s wrestling and top control will be too predictable to work against the versatile Silva a second time.
“I don’t think Anderson being any healthier is going to help [Sonnen],” he said. “I just think he’s going to know what Chael is going to do, and he’s going to be ready for it. I don’t see how Chael could mix it up and be more effective than the last time.”
Sonnen has been trash talking Silva almost non-stop since months before their August 2010 meeting, but many argue he backed up his words by giving the champion all he could handle for four-and-a-half rounds.
“The Gangster from Oregon” was decisively winning the fight on all three judges’ scorecards before Silva slapped on a triangle choke with less than two minutes remaining in the fight.
The next UFC middleweight title challenger called out Hughes in a July 2011 interview with Ariel Helwani when discussing pound-for-pound rankings.
“The pound-for-pound does not exist but just in this pretend world. Jose Aldo has made it all the way to number three? … The same guy that was given the UFC championship belt before he ever fought in the UFC. The only thing more absurd than that was the night they woke Matt Hughes up and informed him that he was champion.”
Sonnen is referring to when Hughes defeated Carlos Newton for the UFC welterweight title way back at UFC 34.
Newton locked up a tight triangle choke in the second round, which Hughes countered with a power bomb. While both fighters were rendered unconscious, Hughes woke up first and was crowned the new 170-pound king.
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