Background check: Matt Hughes

Matt Hughes was born October 13th 1973 in Illinois. He is 5ft 9in tall and weighs in at 170lbs with a 73 inch reach. Hughes has a brown belt in BJJ and was a division 1 NCAA all American wrestler. Hughes has a record of 43-7(15ko, 18sub) and fights out The H.I.T Squad in Illinois. His pro MMA debut was against Erick Snyder in 1998 at the JKD challenge, a match which Hughes won after Snyder submitted due to a big slam.

In his first 23 fights Hughes only lost once, to Dennis Hallman by guillotine choke. In his UFC debut Hughes beat Valeri Ignatov by unanimous decision. Since then Hughes has beaten such fighters as Joe Doerksen, Chris Haseman, Carlos Newton twice by KO, Sean Sherk, Frank Trigg twice by sub, Georges St.Pierre, BJ Penn, Chris Lytle, Matt Serra and Joe Riggs among many others.

Hughes’ first fight against Carlos Newton was for the UFC welterweight title and he went on to defend the title five times before losing it to BJ Penn, regaining it at UFC 50 against GSP and defending it two more times before losing it via TKO against Georges St. Pierre. Hughes will be back in action at UFC 112 where he faces Renzo Gracie who will be looking to avenges Matt’s first round demolition of Royce Gracie who was dispatched in 4:39 at UFC 60. Future hall of famer Matt Hughes has provided some quality fights over the years and I hope for an exciting bout at UFC 112: Invincible.