he only fought twice in 2007! how much time you want to take off?[/quote]

Nobody shuld criticize a guy for wanting to spend time with his family. I know Matt and he is a very family oriented guy and that makes m an even greater champ.

Thats kinda of true, but a great wrestler can usually take the fight where they want it. In this case he got out wrestled by gsp and over powered. Great stand-up wouldn’t have helped him in his last fight.

If I were on that show, I would do anything in my power not to be coached by Hughes…heres why:

As coaches, they all take Pride and want to win the show, but their main objective should be the FIGHTERS competing on the show, instead of their Ego’s. As A coach Hughe’s only cares about the top 4 fighters on his team. When it is time for his worse fighters to compete. He matches them up against the other teams best fighters, sacrfaciing them, so that the other teams top fighter doesn’t take out his better fighters. Is that right? Hell no! He uses to many of his fighters as pawns to be sacraficed.

When its Serra’s turn to pick the match ups, instead of matching up his strongest against Hughe’s weakest, he matches up his weakest againt the other teams weakest fighters, actually giving his lessor fights a chance to continue. He could easily match up his Best against Hughe’s weakest but he doesnt. Why? Because he realizes that this show is really about the future and careers of the young fighters on the TUF show. He treats his worst fighters the same as his best fighters and I really respect that.

You know how many times I heard Hughes say on the show that: “I never lost a fight that I didnt want to loose”. Is that right? What a jerk, these are young fighters careers that he is toying with and I think it SUCKS! I hope to never see him as a coach on that show again!!![/quote]

i agree w/most of this about hughes and serra as coaches. and i’m from l.i. so i was a little biased towards serra. but towards the end of the show when his teammates had to fight against each other i really didn’t like his decision not to corner them. i thought that was wrong. he should have taught them both or stayed out of the gym completely (when troy and the other guy fought, forget his name.) and i think hughes was just much more professional about that whole situation. as much as i don’t like hughes i think he was right in that instance. when it comes down to it there really are no teams, everyone wants to win for themselves. so i did lose a good amount of respect for serra after he chose not to corner either of his guys.

If I were on that show, I would do anything in my power not to be coached by Hughes…heres why:

As coaches, they all take Pride and want to win the show, but their main objective should be the FIGHTERS competing on the show, instead of their Ego’s. As A coach Hughe’s only cares about the top 4 fighters on his team. When it is time for his worse fighters to compete. He matches them up against the other teams best fighters, sacrfaciing them, so that the other teams top fighter doesn’t take out his better fighters. Is that right? Hell no! He uses to many of his fighters as pawns to be sacraficed.

When its Serra’s turn to pick the match ups, instead of matching up his strongest against Hughe’s weakest, he matches up his weakest againt the other teams weakest fighters, actually giving his lessor fights a chance to continue. He could easily match up his Best against Hughe’s weakest but he doesnt. Why? Because he realizes that this show is really about the future and careers of the young fighters on the TUF show. He treats his worst fighters the same as his best fighters and I really respect that.

You know how many times I heard Hughes say on the show that: “I never lost a fight that I didnt want to loose”. Is that right? What a jerk, these are young fighters careers that he is toying with and I think it SUCKS! I hope to never see him as a coach on that show again!!!

Nathan: I respect your posts and oppinions a lot. You are one of the few bloggers who’s posts I look for. Keep it up. AS for Serra I respect him a lot as a coach and as a fighters. HE is undoubtably the UFC welterweight champion!!!! Is he the best WW in the world? No, but he is a very skilled fighter.

When I come up with my own rankings, I dont ever include the current champion. Anything can happen in a title fight. The champions should all be excluded from the rankings. But after Serra looses his title, I will rank him in the lower part of the top 10…somewhere between 7-10. I still think that he could compete with many of the top welterweights. I would give Serra a good shot at beating:
Hughes
Karo (he was very close to finishing Karo a few years back)
Diego….I think his ju jitsu is better then Diego’s and their striking is equal. Diego’s ground n pound is better.

But NO, he isnt the best welterweight in the world. For now he is the champion, and we have to respect that.

5) Loss: Totally dominated by GSP for 2 rouunds

4) Win: He won be decision over a non-contender (Lytle)

3) Loss: Totally dominated by GSP for 2 rouunds and KO’d

2) Win: Beat an injured Penn after being dominated for 2
rounds and almost submitted twice.

1) Win: Dominated a 39 yr old Royce who had only fought
3 times in the prior 6 years.

The conclusion I draw is Hughes is no longer a top WW fighter and he will be embarrassed if he fights anyone other than Serra.[/quote]

I agree that he hasnt done anything in his last 2 years,and thaht he will have a hard time against any top WW including Serra[/quote]
Or you could look at it like:
1) Who doesn’t get dominated by GSP?
2) Who has finished Lytle?
3) Beat Penn because he BURNT his legs out (no matter what other excuses) watch the fight again, ribs have nothing to do with the fact that his legs were DONE.
4) He didn’t just beat Hoist, He dominated him.
5) No matter how you look at it, he only lost to gsp as of late.
I’m not saying Hughes will beat anyone except GSP, but he is still a threat to the WW div.[/quote]

Im guessing your a hughes fan.
1) who doesn’t get dominated by gsp? bj penn, and matt serra didnt
2) lytle is a tuff guy and matt only won couse he took him down and just held him there, he couldnt stand with him at all
3) he got dominated for 2 rounds and he was lucky bj penn wasn’t in shape. if they fought now bj would destroy him.
4) hoyce is not a fighter anymore and the sport has evolved, do you think matt highes is the only guy that could have done that to him? half of the division could.
5) he beat gsp in 2004 thats almost 4 years ago. hes proved hes not a top level fighter anymore. and gsp has proved he is

and i dont think he can beat matt serra

thanks was, hoping for a little more insight than that[/quote]
Sorry, I thought that was a retorical question. The way he got it (although not deserved) was ,he won the Tuf finaly against Chris Lytle. Dana didn’t see the problem with giving the winner a FREEBEE, I mean title shot.