An Inside Look at Matt Hughes' "Made in America": Part III

In the closing chapters, Hughes devotes a few lines (and nothing more) to his fights with Frank Trigg, BJ Penn, and Georges St-Pierre. If you’ve seen the fights, you can skip right over these pages. He also talks about doing The Ultimate Fighter, not wanting to fight his good buddy Rich Franklin, getting married, and beating up Royce Gracie. Again, if you’re up on your MMA, you’ve seen and heard it all before.

Hughes finds God and renews his faith as a Christian in the chapter appropriately named “The Sublime and the Ridiculous.” Hughes walks us through his listless spiritual quest and recreates for the reader the evolution of his faith. The conversations with Brian, a buddy from church, were not only self-serving, but also extremely predictable and at times laughable. It was as if he were writing a parable he’d later pass along.

Hughes talks about his admiration for Randy Couture, and how for a long time he wanted nothing to do with Randy after his divorce. Somehow, perhaps through the grace of God, Hughes mustered up the strength to not only say hello to Randy Couture, but to tell him that he’s ready to be Randy’s friend again. Hughes wrote: “I didn’t have to support divorce to support Randy Couture.” How very Christian of him.

As I sailed through the final pages of the book, I noticed that there’d been no mention of Hughes’ bad blood with Matt Serra. Hughes revisits the Serra-GSP fight, after which Hughes and Sean Sherk were captured on camera slapping each other on the back and laughing like schoolgirls. He describes that and nothing more. Serra’s well-articulated disdain for Hughes as a person has been almost contagious throughout the MMA world, and I expected Hughes to at least address his foul-mouthed, East-Coast antagonist, this time in print. Nope.

I’d also been hoping to read about Hughes’ departure from Miletich Fighting Systems. No such luck. In fairness, this book was probably finished by the time he left and took Robbie Lawler with him, so I’ll give him a pass. Then again, based on his cursory treatment of just about everything else in this book, I don’t see why he couldn’t have slipped in a little something.

Ultimately, Made in America falls short. The superficial recollections of boys being boys and the shallow account of Hughes’ championship journey left me unsatisfied. My biggest gripe is that there’s no real emotion in the book, especially when it comes to being a professional fighter. The stories involving Hughes and his wife, I thought, were told with such little regard that you wonder whether he had a smirk on his face when he wrote them.

I don’t know if I’ll ever really root for Matt Hughes in a fight. I don’t know that I want to. I don't think he's a bad guy; I think he's a brutal competitor who’s always looking to get dominant position on you. And it doesn’t really matter who you are.

An Inside Look at Matt Hughes' "Made in America": Part II

In Part I of my look into Made in America, I talked about Chapters 1-4, which covered Hughes’ childhood and adolescence and culminated with Hughes wetting his beak in the world of MMA. For Part II, I’ll go through those chapters (5-10) in which Matt decides to train full-time with Miletich, and eventually becomes UFC welterweight champion.

After grounding-and-pounding his way through regional promotions, Matt Hughes caught the eye of Pat Miletich and Monte Cox, who subsequently became his manager. The rest, as they say, is history.

Hughes was invited to take on Akihiro Gono in Japan, and looking back on his visit to the Far East, Hughes writes: “I would have killed for just one country breakfast.” Gold.

While competing in the Abu Dhabi Combat Club, Hughes, who was mistakenly put in the 205-lb. weight class, was matched up against fellow Miletich product Jeremy Horn. There was a $1,500 prize for quickest submission and another $1,500 for best throw, so Hughes and Horn devised a plan that would leave them $3,000 richer: Hughes would land a big throw early on and would then quickly choke Horn out. Unfortunately, one of Renzo Gracie’s guys walked right into a choke from Renzo himself, so Horn and Hughes only ended up splitting the $1,500 for best throw. I hope the sheik isn’t reading this.

In the finals, Hughes lost in overtime on points to a certain yellow-headed light heavyweight known as Tito Ortiz. Hughes definitely dislikes Tito. In describing Frank Trigg later on in the book, Hughes writes: “He’s just an idiot. On a scale of one to ten, he’s a Tito.”

Tim Sylvia’s name pops up for the first time, as Hughes remembers being at Ultimate Fitness in Bettendorf, IA, and seeing “the biggest doofus in my life try to enter the fight room…I had seen puppies that were less needy and excitable.” And so it begins…

Hughes later insinuated that Dennis Hallman, who twice submitted Hughes, took steroids. I’d been waiting for some Matt Hughes mudslinging, and he pulled a Jose Canseco with this one.

If there’s one thing that everyone who reads this book can agree it on, it’s that Matt Hughes loved the ladies. The following excerpt is Matt’s recollection of first seeing Brandy, a Bettendorf hard-body he later knocked up:

“I gave her the elevator eyes – checking her out from top to bottom and then back up from bottom to top. From the stomach up, she was really put together well. The boobs were fake, but not in an obvious way, and she had long, straight brown hair down to the middle of her back. She had a great complexion - not tan, but not as pasty white as me. She did have a little bit of hips on her, but here she was doing something about it.”

Matt also became amorous with Audra, Matt’s future wife and the younger sister of a close childhood friend. Matt affectionately recalled Audra as a child plopping down next to him on her family’s couch, and the next thing you know, it’s 2001 and Matt and Audra are in an on-and-off-again engagement. Luckily, they reunited once and for all when Audra asked Matt to take care of her after she got breast implants. And I quote:

“As we moved together on my bed, her stitches ripped a little bit and her blood drizzled across my chest. I lived in a world where people were bound by blood, rolling in practice rooms and cages. It was the first time I’d had that kind of bond on bedsheets. We were together again and it felt wonderful.”

According to Matt, this was the first time he’d seen her naked. I shit you not.

Remember on TUF 5 when Hughes taunted Georges St-Pierre when all the guys went out to the restaurant? He pulled the same stunt with Hayato “Mach” Sakurai before UFC 36. “I was on him the entire week like white rice on sushi,” Hughes recalls. “The Michael Jordan of Japan was still just the Mach Sakurai of America…I really feel like he shouldn’t have been against me. It really wasn’t a challenge.” Wow.

Best of all was Hughes’ recollection of Pat Miletich recounting for him the now infamous Tito
Ortiz-Lee Murray street fight in London after UFC 38. Long story short, a brawl breaks out, Lee and Tito square off, Lee connects with a five-punch combo that knocks Tito OUT and then stomps down Tito’s head a few times with his boots. Anyone who's read Sherdog forum posts has surely heard this one before.

Overall, Hughes comes across as a smug bully in this part of the book, which just about any half-interested MMA biographer could have written. Hughes offers no special insight and reiterated a lot of what long-time MMA fans already know. After 185 (or so) pages, there’s been virtually no talk of God or religious devotion, but I'm sure it's coming.

Stay tuned for Part III…

An Inside Look at Matt Hughes' "Made in America": Part I

I zipped through about 200 pages yesterday in Made in America, Matt Hughes' new autobiography. Overall, the book is easy to read and pretty entertaining. In this post, I'll discuss the chapters (1-4) leading up to Hughes' foray into the MMA world.

Chapter One is "This Is Farm Life." Not just a clever name. The book kicks off with (surprise, surprise) the birth of Matt and his twin brother Mark and a Rockwellian description of life in 1970's Hillsboro, IL: friendly, simple people who wear blue jeans, work hard, and sleep with their front doors unlocked. You've heard it all before.

Matt briefly explores the dichotomy of his childhood in rural Illinois; there was the endless fun he and Mark enjoyed on and around the family farm, but there was also the family's hardship after the Federal Land Bank Association set the price for farm land. As a result, the Hughes' farm went from 1,500 acres to about 700 acres, and Hughes' father felt the pressure to keep his family and his farm afloat during these tough times.

I enjoyed reading about Matt and Mark as little kids. Naturally, the fraternal twins were very close and very competitive, but from what I've gathered, it was Matt who took competitiveness to another level. The first chapter, for example, ends with the following: "I was so bad at athletics in junior high that my brother Mark beat me." Here comes the dickhead we've been waiting to read about...

In high school, Mark made the varsity wrestling squad and lettered as a freshman. "He can't be the number one wrestler in the family," Matt thought. Matt then challenged for a varsity spot, won, and the guy he beat then moved down in weight, beat Mark, and bumped him off the varsity squad. To Matt's credit, though, he looks back on this moment with regret. Or so he says...

Matt's relationship with Mark can be summed up aptly with the following line: "That's who I root for right before and right after I punch him in the face." Take that as you will.

Did you know that Matt Hughes drove an '84 Camaro in high school? That's more of a Matt Serra car than a Matt Hughes car, no? Hughes was given the car as a gift from his maternal grandfather whose paper route Matt and Mark took over as teenagers.

If you're one of those people who vehemently dislikes Matt Hughes, read what he writes about his dad. It explains a lot.

Oh, and by the way, Mark Hughes is the man! He's a physically stronger version of Matt and has a much worse temper. The stories of Mark Hughes beating some ass were particularly entertaining.

I also got a kick out of the chapter where the Hughes boys go to college. We meet Marc Fiore (the TUF 6 Team Serra coach), a wrestling teammate who reached college without knowing how to read or write. In one heartwarming account, Matt recalls the time he, Mark, and Fiore went to visit the Hughes' Uncle Jack to help with some work around the farm. Matt and Mark taught Fiore how to properly cut off a pig's balls, and then chased him down while throwing pig testicles and dead piglets at Fiore's face. Thank God I grew up in the suburbs.

We also first hear about Frank Trigg, who's not-so-affectionately described as "the kind of guy who's mysteriously tan at Christmastime," in the same chapter. Trigg beat Mark in a wrestling match and went on to become a National Champion, but Matt wrote: "It's just too bad he never really made anything of himself." I laughed.

In college, the Hughes brothers (and Fiore) were definitely meathead pranksters. My favorite story is when Matt and Mark go to a fraternity party and have no luck picking up the ladies. Confused and bored, they fall back on Plan B: fight. Mark rummages through the frat house for food and pisses off a fraternity brother. Matt is confronted, pretends he's drunk, and then promptly lifts the fraternity brother off the ground and slams him through the window. The lights are somehow turned off amidst the ruckus, so Matt and Mark run outside and then take turns blasting frat brothers in the face as soon as they step out the door.

After college, a wrestler whom Matt knew asked Matt to help him prepare for an MMA fight. Impressed with Matt's wrestling prowess and raw athleticism, the friend got Matt booked in a couple of small shows in Chicago. After one early fight, the referee told Hughes, "I can make a champion out of you." That referee was Pat Miletich.

Stay tuned for An Inside Look at Matt Hughes' Made in America: Part II.

I’m Definitely Buying Matt Hughes’ Autobiography

Ben Fowlkes, a fellow FiveOuncesofPain.com contributor, has penned a new piece about coming to terms with the fact that despite Matt Hughes’ ostensible douchebaggery, he will be buying himself a copy of Matt Hughes’ new autobiography, Made in America.

“You see, I want to read Hughes’ book, but I don’t want to give him any money for it. It’s not because I’m cheap, either. It’s more because I don’t want Hughes to have any more of my money, especially not for a book I’d mostly be reading in order to revel in my dislike for him,” Ben writes. Fair enough.

But I don’t care. Matt Hughes doesn't need to be Atticus Finch for me to buy his book.

I don’t care that Hughes is an asshole. I can be an asshole. My neighbor is an asshole. Some of my best friends are assholes. If Matt Hughes truly is the self-righteous prig that we see, hear, and read about, then so what? He’s a regular guy, straight off the farm, who might be a bit…bristly. I’ve seen and heard fighters do and say far worse than Matt Hughes, but it seems that the cool thing to do these days is to hate on Matt Hughes.

I don't care that Hughes was rude to Tim Sylvia and made him cry (or whatever the story is). And since when did MMA fans come to the aid of big Timmy? The way I see it, Tim asked, Hughes answered. It made me laugh.

I don’t care that Matt Hughes cites Scripture or that he’s borderline imperialistic in spreading his faith. I, for one, am not a person of great (or even decent) religious devotion, but I’ve seen how living a life of faith brings peace and inspires acts of kindness. Is Hughes a hypocrite for not practicing what he preaches? Probably. Then again, is anyone really looking to Matt Hughes for spiritual or moral guidance? Didn't think so.

I also don’t care about whether Hughes is a crappy coach. Only two of his eight guys won preliminary fights this season on TUF…the same two who outlasted all of Serra’s guys and reached the finals. If Hughes is a crappy coach, then Pretty Boy Floyd is a pathetic ballroom dancer, and Todd Bridges is a poor excuse for a figure skater. Reality TV is a beautiful thing.

What I do care about is that Matt Hughes has given MMA some of its most dramatic and most historic moments inside the cage. Under the sport's brightest lights, Hughes has dismantled the likes of BJ Penn, Georges St-Pierre, Royce Gracie, Sean Sherk, Frank Trigg, Carlos Newton, and “Mach” Sakurai. That’s what I care about, and that's what I hope to read more about.

Hughes spent years trading punches and laughs with one of the sport's most legendary fight camps. And then he left! What was the aftermath? How did Pat Miletich take it when Hughes told him? What did the rest of the Miletich guys think of Hughes leaving and taking Robbie Lawler with him? That’s the type of stuff I’m dying to hear about. There's much more I want to see in his book, but I think you get my point.

What I liked most about Jens Pulver’s autobiography was how Jens walked the reader through his life and career, tracing over the good and the bad. I get a better sense of who Jens is as a fighter and as a person, and I'm looking forward to taking a similar journey with Matt Hughes. Maybe I'll like him more, maybe less. That's not really important.

Say what you will about Matt Hughes and the way he comes across in his book. The odds are that you’re probably right on the money, and that this book may very well serve to reinforce the negativity surrounding his character. But so what? No matter what we say about Hughes, he's a country boy, and country boys can survive.

GSP Replaces Serra for UFC 79

That's right. Apparently, Georges St-Pierre vs. Matt Hughes III will be for an interim welterweight title. The UFC sure does love them some interim titles. Why they don't just say that GSP and Hughes, or BJ Penn and Joe Stevenson, will be fighting for top contender status I'll never know. Read more from UFC.com.

As you can see, UFC 79 is looking real good these days:

GSP-Matt Hughes

Chuck Liddell-Wanderlei Silva

Lyoto Machida - Thierry Sokoudjou

Injured Matt Serra Scratched from UFC 79

UFC welterweight champion Matt Serra suffered a herniated disc while training on Monday and is no longer scheduled to defend his belt against Matt Hughes at UFC 79 on December 29. Serra was quoted with the following:

"This is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. I’ve never had a back injury before; I could hardly get off of the MRI table. There is no way I can train through this, and I’m devastated, especially because this was such an important fight. I was looking forward to fighting Matt Hughes. All my training was going phenomenally until Monday – all I can do now is to get better and to fight again as soon as possible.”

Read more from UFC.com.

Not to Point Fingers or Anything...

"Matt Serra’s been his coach for years, so you’ve got to think that came from the gym back in New York or that came from the coaching there on the reality show. So I’ve gotta say that it’s probably Matt Serra’s fault he left."

- Matt Hughes on Joe Scarola leaving the TUF 6 house.

CBS Sports Interview with Dana White

Sam Caplan recently interviewed Dana White as part of a CBS Sports interview. Here are my favorite parts:

Babalu Sobral being released from the UFC: "Babalu is showing a bad track record lately. I don't like the direction he's been going in, and he needs to straighten his life out if he wants to continue to be a professional athlete."

I agree. Babalu was arrested in Miami a few weeks back, and his UFC 74 post-fight commentary and overall attitude was Bush League, especially for a fighter of Babalu's status.

A UFC return for Babalu?: "Absolutely. I like Babalu. He's a good guy and a good fighter."

That's what I like to hear.

Georges St-Pierre’s next fight: "He'll fight the winner of Hughes/Serra. And yeah, we're trying to do a fight up in Canada, so that one would make a lot of sense."

This will make for a great headliner, but I feel bad for guys like Karo Parisyan, Jon Fitch, and Diego Sanchez who are still waiting in line for their shot. Oh well...

A title shot for Roger Huerta?: "I think he's probably a good year away."

Thank you. I've been saying for a while now that Huerta is not yet championship material. Plus, the more he fights (and wins), the brighter his star will shine. That was fruity...

Fedor Emelianenko’s management team: "I don't like to talk about contract negotiations with the public but it didn't go well. These guys are crazy."

Dana, watch your mouth.

Liddell vs. Wanderlei on December 29?: "It's possible. Liddell would have to win. Liddell would have to come out injury free. There's a lot of ifs."

Keith Jardine is quite possible my single least favorite UFC fighter.

Josh Barnett: "He's just a punk. You know what? The thing is I don't want to even talk about Josh Barnett. Nobody even cares about Josh Barnett. I got Mirko Cro Cop, the guy that just beat the s**t out of him (Barnett). I'm not interested in Josh Barnett at all as far as who he is as a person or as a fighter or how he represents the sport. I don't like anything about him."

And Cro Cop just got his head kicked in by the guy Couture just embarrassed. Barnett is worth signing.

Denis Kang: "Denis Kang was supposed to be on Season 1 of The Ultimate Fighter but he ended up getting a good deal over in Korea. This is a guy we were looking at to be on season one of The Ultimate Fighter, I wouldn't call him one of the major superstars in MMA or one of the major superstars from Pride."

Kang on TUF? I never knew that had been in the works. I'm a Kang fan, but I agree with Dana; Kang is not a major superstar. He's close, but there are certainly bigger names out there.

Gilbert Melendez: "I'm very interested in him. He's under contract with someone else right now. But yeah, I'm very interested in him."

I'm glad Capalan asked about the undefeated Melendez, who's one of the most under appreciated fighters out there.

For the rest of the interview, click here.

Hughes, Lawler Leave MFS

A new MMAWeekly article confirms rumors that former UFC welterweight champ Matt Hughes and ICON middleweight champion "Ruthless" Robbie Lawler have both left the legendary Miletich Fighting Systems.

Hughes plans to start a gym in southern Illinois that would be closer to his home. Lawler was been offered a paid position as part Hughes' new venture, one that Lawler sees as a great opportunity for his family.

For more, click here.

UFC Confirms Three Biggies

- UFC middleweights Kendall Grove and Patrick Cote will face off at UFC 74 on August 5. If Cote couldn’t finish Scott Smith, I don’t see how he’ll manage the much bigger, much more lethal Kendall Grove.

- UFC welterweight champion Matt Serra will make his first title defense against Matt Hughes in Las Vegas on Dec. 31 -– not in New Jersey in November. The change of venue was made public on Hughes’ web site. A New Jersey fight would have been huge for Long Island's Serra.

- The winner of the Sean Sherk/Hermes Franca UFC lightweight championship match at UFC 73 next weekend will make his first title defense face BJ Penn, UFC president Dana White told ESPN’s “The Hot List.” Looks like BJ will be picking up a lightweight championship before jumping back up to the UFC's glamorous welterweight class. Not to brag or anything, but once I heard that the BJ Penn/Jens Pulver fight was set, I told my friend Ross that Penn would definitely get a title shot if he were to get past Jens. Damn, I'm good...

Hughes and The Terror in the Garden State

As we all know, UFC welterweight champ Matt "The Terror" Serra will make his first title defense against former champ Matt Hughes, and I just got word that their fight will most likely - not definitely - be in November (UFC 79, I presume) at the Continental Airlines Arena in scenic East Rutherford, NJ.

Not familiar with East Rutherford? Think of the Sopranos intro. Right after Tony goes through the toll booth, he's in that shitty, depressed looking area - all highway, factories, warehouses. Welcome to East Rutherford.

The UFC returning to NJ for the first time since 2005 is certainly a boon for Long Islander Matt Serra, who is sure to have plenty of hometown supporters cheer him on against a somewhat reviled Matt Hughes (which I can't really understand).

I wonder if Serra/Longo fighters Pete "Drago" Sell and Luke Cummo will be signed to the card, as well. I'd love to see Cummo back in the octagon.

I have had some Brazilian jiu-jitsu experience under the tutelage of Matt Serra (starting before his TUF 4 run), and believe me when I tell you that you'd be hard-pressed to find a more friendly, accommodating guy anywhere. Serra clearly loves to teach, and I believe him when he says that no matter how his fight against Hughes goes, he's already won.