Tag: Matt Hughes

The illustrious Jon Jones and the possible retirement of Matt Hughes will be dominating for the next week, with any and all other mixed martial arts reduced to a mere footnote.

Do people even know that Bellator featherweight champion Joe Warren was brutally knocked out in one minute’s time in his bantamweight debut on Saturday?

It’s easy to forgive though, as the UFC’s light heavyweight champion put on yet another virtuoso showing in the UFC 135 headliner against Quinton “Rampage” Jackson, sending fans and media alike into a frenzy of hyperbole and over-the-top praise.

That and more took center stage on Saturday night and now is the time for reflection on the so-so fight card that was.

Good luck, light heavyweight contenders

From the 0-2 Brad Bernard to the 20-5 Mauricio “Shogun” Rua—and the 12 fighters in between—they’ve looked one and the same when paired opposite UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones.

Former 205-pound kingpin Quinton “Rampage” Jackson looked no different Saturday night in succumbing to a fourth-round submission against Jones.

Only the second time Jackson has been submitted in his career, the rear-naked choke capped a thorough domination that went down just like any other Jones fight.

The level of difficulty hypothetically keeps shifting upwards for Jones, but the man can play the game and the results remain the same.

Entering Saturday’s fight, I wanted to see Jones tested. Unable to think of so much as a smidge of adversity along the course of Jones’ UFC career, I want to see where his heart’s at when he isn’t in the driver’s seat.

It’s a tenet that I think is mandatory if we’re going to put him among the Anderson Silvas and George St. Pierres of the world and Jackson was unable to aid in that pursuit.

Why? Because he was so thoroughly overmatched for all 974 seconds of Saturday’s main event that he had no way of doing so.

By nature, Jackson is a counterpuncher. And when there are no punches being thrown your way, you’re not given much room to counter. Come over the top with a counter shot following a leg kick, you say? Good luck, because Jones packs a pair of javelins for legs that kept Jackson at bay and unable to so much as sniff the chance at landing a clean, hard punch.

It was the lack of any fundamental boxing, a regular in Jones’ fights, that carried the day including the vicious kick to the shin, a staple in Silva’s arsenal, that is always a cringe-worthy strike when executed properly.

Jones’ ability to keep distance left Jackson lunging and wind-milling whenever the opportunity presented itself and the champ simply evaded, rinsed and repeated.

That’s not to totally sour Jackson’s evening as the defensive elements to his performance were solid. He was easily Jones’ most lofty task to put on the mat and Jackson blocked many high kicks while slipping many punches along the way.

But all the while, you could see Jones adhering to his playbook and just systematically breaking down Jackson as the rounds progressed, so much so that the mental game was already handily in Jones’ favor after a third round that saw “Rampage” unwilling to swing when Jones dropped his hands.

“Bones” put the finishing touches on another lopsided performance just 74 seconds into the fourth round, putting the entire contendership scene on notice and leaving us all yearning for when someone will finally humanize what has been an invincible UFC tenure for Jones.

Rashad Evans gets the next crack at Jones and following that, the winner of Rua/Dan Henderson would appear to be the next logical choice. There’s Lyoto Machida, the rising Phil Davis among others, but Jones will be favored heavily against any and all future challengers—with the exception of a potential superfight with Silva.

And after Saturday, you’d be hard-pressed to argue otherwise.

At long last, the 205-pound division appears to have found some stability.

Hang ‘em up, Matt?

Josh Koscheck helped wake up the Denver crowd with a one-round pasting of former welterweight champion Matt Hughes in the night’s co-main event.

The outcome was hardly a surprise as Koscheck entered the bout as nearly a 5-to-1 favorite and after waiting a few minutes to open up with his hands, capitalized on a Hughes’ miscue and walloped the Hall of Famer with hammer fists as the round nearly expired.

The win got Koscheck back in the win column after his shellacking at the hands of Georges St. Pierre and marked Hughes’ second consecutive loss. With this being the final fight on Hughes’ current UFC contract, naturally questions arose about his possible retirement.

Hughes didn’t exactly say yes or no when questioned by Joe Rogan (who may have been more distraught than anyone at the sight of Hughes losing; seriously, go back and listen to the defeat in Rogan’s voice calling that finish and his prolonged silence after the stoppage), saying that he wouldn’t retire but wanted to be put on the shelf for a bit.

I’m guessing that’s probably a hint that Hughes is ready to start mulling over his career options with the possibility of one final run through the octagon in a send-off fight.

As long as it’s kept to that, I’m totally content with Hughes’ career trajectory at this stage.

It seemed almost ironic that after the post-fight interview that the cameras panned to a shot of Chuck Liddell in the crowd as I can’t help but fear that’s the path Hughes may be headed down if he feels he has two or three fights left in the tank.

At the heart of it, these are just two straight losses after a three-fight winning streak but it’s the way Hughes has suffered defeat that indicates the end of the road is approaching after a pair of violent knockout losses.

It’s nothing new to say that Hughes has no business competing with anyone even among the 10 best welterweights in the UFC, but nobody wants to see a fighter that legendary become a caricature of himself like some of his predecessors unfortunately have.

Give Hughes one final, winnable fight (Dennis Hallman, anyone?) to go out on a high note on and he’ll always have claim to the title as the sport’s first truly great welterweight and to this point, the second-best 170-pound mixed martial artist ever.

Nothing wrong with that at all.

Six grueling rounds

At UFC 131, Junior Dos Santos put on a sound, dominant thumping of Shane Carwin to solidify himself as the No. 1 contender to Cain Velasquez’s heavyweight title.

The level of Dos Santos’ performance also showed that he and Velasquez are a hefty tier above their heavyweight compatriots as far as talent, technique and sheer ability.

I’m not sure if either of the two were in attendance for Saturday’s card or even within 500 miles of Denver, but my appreciation for their respective games ballooned after seeing what else the UFC heavyweight division has to offer.

With all due respect to Mark Hunt, Ben Rothwell, Travis Browne and Rob Broughton, that has to be the most torturous stretch of back-to-back main card fights in recent UFC history.

I get the rationale for putting these fights on pay-per-view as both Browne and Hunt have knockout power and in Hunt’s case, his losses come in fairly short order (five of his past six losses lasted a combined five minutes, 53 seconds).

The expectation was a pair of quick, violent finishes and on we roll to Koscheck-Hughes. But you’re always going to be flirting with disaster if that doesn’t go according to plan because, at the end of the day, these guys are heavyweights of the 255-pound-plus variety.

In the case of Browne/Broughton, there was little question as to who the better fighter was; as expected, Browne was able to do as he pleased with an overmatched opponent.

But it was a far cry from the performances he turned in against James McSweeney and Stefan Struve.

Browne had his moments where he’d start to land with frequency but the second Broughton was able to defend or grab a wrist, the pace slowed and the result was a lackluster victory.

Rothwell’s showing had fans at the sports bar I caught the card at laughing late in the fight, as he looked positively dreadful after a solid opening round.

It’s really hard to be outclassed over 15 minutes by present-day Hunt but to the PRIDE veteran’s credit, he turned his best performance in years. Hunt didn’t look like a fish out of water off his back and showed strong enough defensive wrestling to keep the action upright where he could exploit his obvious striking edge over the steadily-gassing Rothwell.

Hunt came away as the standout in this tragic span of six rounds in two of the year’s worst UFC fights.

Yes, there’s always the chance that these fights end in highlight reel fashion like Browne-Struve, but the margin for error is magnified all the more because they’re mid-tier fighters in the UFC’s weakest division.

It has to be taken into account when mapping out a fight card and for all the momentum built up off Nate Diaz’s thrashing of Takanori Gomi, the wind was taken out of the sails in a heartbeat by pairing these two fights back-to-back.

Nate Diaz craps fireballs

Speaking of everyone’s favorite Stockton-based lightweight, holy crap.

One a night when Jones and bad heavyweight fighting dominated the action, one of the evening’s most impressive showing has become almost a footnote as Nate Diaz threw down the violence on Takanori Gomi.

Returning to lightweight after a four-fight stint at 170 pounds, Diaz looked as good as he ever has in dispatching of the admittedly faded Gomi.

We got the usual Diaz braggadocio mixed with fast, heavy and precise boxing that quickly reduced Gomi to a smattering of failed winging hooks.

If you saw Diaz’s route to victory requiring establishing his reach with a volume-heavy attack that would eventually frustrate Gomi into a mistake, then congratulations.

What I’m not sure was anticipated were the evil intentions behind every strike Diaz threw. His boxing looked more polished than anything showcased during Diaz’s last run at lightweight and did enough damage for Gomi to throw up the proverbial white flag by shooting for a takedown.

Diaz made a resounding return to 155 and as was the case last time, how far he can go with matter almost solely how he fares when paired up with a wrestler but until then, he’ll have performances like this to fall back on.

As for Gomi, unless the UFC is hell-bent on shoehorning him onto next year’s Japan card, there is no conceivable reason to keep him on the roster.

Oh, Aaron Riley

It felt like déjà vu in Saturday’s preliminary card finale, as Aaron Riley was yet again fed to another “Ultimate Fighter” winner.

Not only that, but he lost in similar fashion as yet another doctor stoppage does Riley in, this time against TUF 13 winner Tony Ferguson.

Following the same blueprint employed by that of Ross Pearson, Ferguson handled the scrappy Riley on the feet, uncorking the veteran’s jaw with a well-placed long-range uppercut.

It was the most significant strike landed in a first round that saw Ferguson pick up right where he left off after thumping Ramsey Nijem.

While Riley is anything but a credible indication of Ferguson’s potential at lightweight, this was still a more inspiring performance than those turned in by fellow TUF winners Court McGee and Jonathan Brookins last weekend.

Ferguson’s fortunate in that his boxing is fast and tight enough to pose problems, while also mixing in impressive head movement. If he’s able to hone his wrestling to the level where he can keep fights upright, then he’ll be stick around in the UFC.

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