Matt Hughes: Used to win moreAlludes to Continues Competition via Blog

At UFC 98, Matt Hughes did the predictable, and stylistically beat up on Matt Serra for three rounds by holding him down and out-muscling him, as odds-makers and fans alike oft predicted he would prior to their clash.

Before the fight, Stephan Bonnar had said that he heard Hughes state that win or lose, this would be his last fight in the octagon.

During his post-fight interview with Joe Rogan, when Hughes was asked about the direction of his future, Matt wouldn't commit either which way, stating that he and Dana would talk about it. He did go as far as saying that he'd never fight for anybody but the UFC.

But with the taste of victory fresh on his tongue, Hughes seems to have backpedalled somewhat from his original prediction that his fight with Serra was his last.

Granted, Hughes never committed to anything, nor did he ever officially go on record as saying that he was considering his fight with Serra his last. Via his blog, he's made remarks offhandedly about his tenure in the sport and how much time he has left, however he's come up short of sealing anything as absolute, or anything short of forethought.

Hughes talks victory

In his latest blog entry, the 35-year-old former champion recounts his fight with Serra.

"When he knocked me down in the first round, I didn’t know what hit me. When I finally realized what had happened, I thought it was the same punch that knocked GSP down. My corner eventually told me that it was a head butt. His two minor submission attempts never even had me worried. When the fight was over, I was pretty confident I was going to get my hand raised," writes Hughes.

"He stayed in real good position on his back," Hughes continued. "I thought I would be able to use my weight and strength a little bit better. I was wanting to throw more elbows, but he did a good job of defending where I didn't get to throw the strikes that I was wanting to. I think I was able to wear on him a little bit, wear him out a little bit, but I thought he would be more tired than he was. He came in, obviously, better than I thought he would."

The run of a champion

Hughes first fought for the UFC in 1999 at UFC 22, where he took a unanimous decision victory. He fought for them two more times in 2000 while bouncing around RINGS, Extreme Challenge and a select few other smaller events, before signing with the UFC in 2002, where he's fought exclusively ever since slamming Carlos Newton to the floor from a power-bomb position to the tune of winning the UFC Welterweight Championship.

Hughes' career began at his own age of 24. As an eleven-year veteran of the sport, Matt Hughes has fought fifty times in a cage or octagon. He's finished the fight in 33 out of 43 victories, 19 times by submission and 14 times by knockout. His long-held record of dive consecutive title defenses was only recently tied by middleweight Anderson Silva.

Despite that Hughes is 2-3 since 2006, he remains one of the most successful and accomplished fighters in the UFC, and in MMA's short history.

Yet, underscoring how quickly the road for an accomplished and tenured MMA fighter can come to a screeching halt, Hughes went from successfully avenging a loss against BJ Penn to losing three of four fights, finding himself KO'ed by round two twice.

At 35 years of age, Hughes' physical attributes and martial acumen could easily and convincingly place him amongst the higher-ranked fighters in his weight-class. Were it any other promotion, that may easily be the case.

When things change...

However, he's been KO'ed viciously by two world-class opponents in two of four fights prior to his win over Serra, and since one of those fighters has beaten him twice consecutively, it's difficult to justify this.

Hughes has come a long way, and for the most part, his style is set. It's not that it's predictable, it's that it's traversable. In the event that a striker can bypass Hughes' takedowns, wrestling, and ground striking, not much is left for Hughes to offer by way of contention.

In his victory over Serra, a fighter who is also now 2-3 in his last five fights, I'm afraid that Hughes' self-confidence and logical sense may have become somewhat skewed. Again, this underscores another point in the long, hard road a fighter can walk on his way to realizing that his sport has passed him by: realizing that very thing doesn't always come easy.

"I definitely still want to compete. I still think I'm competitive in the weight division, so we'll keep going," says Hughes.

What for?

Honestly, do you see a fight between Hughes and St. Pierre, or Hughes and Alves, going any differently than it did last time?

Hughes does.

"It will be interesting to watch Thiago Silva and Georges St. Pierre go at it. It will be an interesting fight for me to watch. We'll figure it out. Like I've said before, I'm not going anywhere," Hughes insists.

Both St. Pierre (age 28) and Alves (age 25) have a significant age advantage on Hughes in a sport that is beginning to prove, in this writer's long-held opinion, that age only equals a definitive experiential advantage in the rarest of cases, such as with fighters like Randy Couture.

No one can deny Hughes' ability to wrestle, his dominant run as a champion, or his voracity as a competitor. The main concern here, of course, is his ability to do all of these things against the two welterweights who will clash at UFC 100. Then of course, there's always the next big thing in the division... that marquee welterweight who comes along every so often and seems to beat everyone up. What's Hughes do there?

Wait and see

With little left to prove, and the option to ride off into the sunset as a historic great, the real point of interest will be Hughes' scope of movement within the next year.

If he intends to fight, who will they match him against? How many times will he fight? After getting tapped out by St. Pierre in 2007, he fought one time in 2008, and was brutally KO'ed. His one fight in 2008 took place in June. So far, his one fight in 2009 has taken place in May.

There's always the possibility that Hughes could be looking to become an addition to the commentary booth, potentially (and hopefully) replacing the god-awful Mike Goldberg. Many of my prayers go unanswered, and this is one of them, yet it's one I've made consistently over the last decade or so. I'd take Hughes over Goldberg.