MMA Shoot Exclusive: Matt Hughes v. Matt Serra in January?
Written by Lex on August 14th, 2008 in MMA, UFC.
Tags: Georges St. Pierre, Jon Fitch, Matt Hughes, Matt Hughes Interview, Matt Serra, UFC 87
Matt Hughes joined Ian and I on the most recent edition of PWB’s Official Podcast Hotline. If you haven’t heard the interview yet, here are a few quotes to whet your appetite:
On a potential match with Matt Serra :
“Right now, I’ve talked to Joe Silva quite a few times, and we’re looking at maybe January. He has told me it’s going to be Matt Serra, so I’m looking at January or February. That’ll give my knee plenty of time to heal, if it’s natural. If I have to go under the knife, I don’t know what my timeframe will be…”
On whether or not he was annoyed by Thiago Alves not making weight for their fight:
“I don’t know that I’d say that it annoys me. I just think it’s unprofessional. You know, here we are, we’re in a sport where you gotta make weight, and he doesn’t make weight, and he misses weight by so much. I think four pounds or something. So really, did he even try and make weight?
“If I ever happen to not make weight, I will die trying. It will never be four pounds over. It’ll be, you know, Matt couldn’t make weight because he ran so much he had to go to the hospital.”
On the Georges St. Pierre/Jon Fitch fight at UFC 87:
“I gotta be real honest…I was kind of bored with this match. It was the last fight of the night, and halfway in the third round, I got up, and I left the arena.”
Also, here’s a clip from the interview where he talks about the GSP/Fitch fight:
If you’re interested in more of Matt’s thoughts on UFC 87, he addressed the show on his blog, as well.
August 14th, 2008 at 6:12 pm
[…] a MMA Shoot interview with […]
August 15th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
Great interview Lex and Ian, I’ve seen it quoted by a bunch of MMA sites.
I don’t know whether I should like or hate Hughes I have a lot of respect for everything that he has done in the sport and he was so classy at UFC 85 not only accepting a tough fight on short notice to effectively save a PPV but he also stuck with it when Alves failed to make weight when many other fighters would have refused to compete.
Having said that he acted like an idiot on TUF 6 and some of his comments were baffling. I have no idea how he could criticise GSP v Fitch that was one of the fights of the year yet he found it boring wtf? And to criticise GSP’s performance was unbelievable St Pierre has absolutely dominated everyone that he has fought since the loss to Serra, including Hughes, and he destroyed a very tough fighter in Fitch, completely dominating him on the ground and hurting him very badly. It’s things like that that stop me being a fully fledged fan of Hughes.
August 16th, 2008 at 4:57 am
[…] Champion Matt Hughes apparently not watching the same St. Pierre/Fitch fight as everyone else (MMA Shoot)“Halfway in the third round, I got up and left the arena.” - Hughes, continuing to look […]
August 17th, 2008 at 8:30 am
David,
I was surprised at the amount of hate out there after this interview. I mean, I realized some people aren’t fans of Hughes after TUF, but some of the comments, especially on YouTube, have really surprised me. Like him or not, he’s one of greatest welterweights of all time, so I’d think people would respect him a little more.
UFC 87 was the first PPV I’ve missed this year (had to be out of town), so I can’t comment as to whether or not the fight was boring. I will say, in Hughes defense, that some people have told me the fight was somewhat boring after the first round. I dunno, I think people are blowing out of proportion what he said a little bit. Sure, he took a bit of a swipe at GSP, saying he wasn’t as big as he’d been in the past, but I dunno, I’m just surprised by all the hate. Honestly, I thought people would be more interested that he may fight Serra in January.