hughes by knock out
Since you guys can’t put together a decent argument for Hughes I’ll do it for you, I like the guy/fighter, I just like Penn better.
The 2nd Trigg fight is a great example of his tenacity and desire, coming back from that groin strike and defending a RNC only to end up submitting Trigg later on that round is one of the greatest comebacks in UFC history.
His submission of GSP. A lot of people like to argue that GSP was not dominating that round, I disagree, it was clearly GSP’s round with him landing better in the standup and actually scoring the takedown. GSP was controlling the action, one minor slip and Hughes rolls into an armbar for the victory…a great example of his progression as a fighter.
His fight with Gracie…he beat up an old man who hasn’t kept up with the progression of mma…goodjob matt. Sorry, couldn’t help but add that in.
Anyways, matt is a good fighter and dedicated to his craft, I just think Penn is one of the greatest mma practitioners of our day and will prove it again on Sept 23rd when he once again shocks the world and regains the title.
Controlling Hughes at any moment in the fight doesn’t add up to much when he turns it around and submits your ass. Its all just dancing until Hughes finds his moment.
Like Lidell’s fights. He’s going to end it sooner or later. Everything else up to that moment was just for fun. For us to watch and argue about.
Just like that fight with Crocop and Nog. Crocop was beating Nog by keeping it standing. It only took a moment to finally get Crocop on the ground and submit him.
All that strategy, domination and scored points gone by a submission. Not a lucky submission but a skilled one.
It doesn’t mean much to be controlling Hughes when he turns it around on you and he can at any time reach into his arsenal and pull out the win.
If BJ is preparing like he should be, he wins this.
BJ by suspender choke! 
Let’s move to a deeper analysis
First, let’s take a look at both of their records:
BJ Penn:
14 fights in 5 years.
10-3-1
Who did he lose to?
Jens Pulver, Ryoto Machida & Georges St. Pierre. And a 5 round draw with Caol Uno. 4 of the 10 wins were from strikes the rest submission. However, he has not stopped anyone with strikes since May of 2002.
I wonder how dangerous of a striker he really is?
Let’s now look at Matt Hughes record over the past 5 years:
17 fights in the past 5 years
16-1
Only loss is to BJ Penn
Let’s look at his wins and how he won them:
6 wins by submission
7 wins by strikes
3 wins by decision.
That means that in 5 years time of his 16 wins he only had to go to a decsion 3 times. That would make his fight stopping percentage about 81%!
Closer look:
He has fought more often then Penn.
Has a higher win rate than Penn.
Has a higher ko percentage than Penn.
The only saving factor for Penn, and what makes this a very interesting fight, is that Hughes actually lost to Penn. That being his only loss in 5 years time.
As I stated previously, I think that Hughes underestimated Penn at that time, as Penn was coming up from lightweight.
Absent the “underestimation factor” (for want of a better term) I don’t see Hughes losing to Penn.
In fact, without any current knowledge of either fighters prep work I am going to go out on a limb and say that Hughes will stop Penn sometime during those five rounds.
My gut tells me it will be sometime between the 3rd and 5th round, based on Hughes far superior conditioning and BJ’s now well known lack of conditioning. But it could be earlier.
One more look:
Strentgh-Hughes
Endurance-Hughes
Standing striking-Toss up-(Look at the records)
Submissions-Penn
Ground Striking (yes that’s important) Hughes.
Current Grappling ability and ground savvy-Toss up with a slight edge to Hughes because of his wrestling background and greater mat experience (more fights etc).
Mental Edge-Hughes. I see BJ as a minor head case. And Hughes will want revenge badly. In addition to this Hughes has fought more times (beyond the 5 years above he has another 26 fights under his belt dating back to 1998. That makes a total of 43 mma fights! He has also fought many more times within the UFC cage. Now throw in the fact that he is the current champion.
BJ’s only chance is to do what he did in their previous fight. That is, catch him in a submission in the first round as he did last time (4:39). But, as many have already stated, Hughes is a much improved fighter. Add to that the revenge factor and not underestimating Penn this time around. I don’t see him falling for the early moves.
I’ll give a more specific prediction (if anyone cares) as the fight gets closer. But, Penn is going to lose it’s just a matter of when and how!
[quote]ZEB wrote:
Let’s move to a deeper analysis
First, let’s take a look at both of their records:
BJ Penn:
14 fights in 5 years.
10-3-1
Who did he lose to?
Jens Pulver, Ryoto Machida & Georges St. Pierre. And a 5 round draw with Caol Uno. 4 of the 10 wins were from strikes the rest submission. However, he has not stopped anyone with strikes since May of 2002.
I wonder how dangerous of a striker he really is?
Let’s now look at Matt Hughes record over the past 5 years:
17 fights in the past 5 years
16-1
Only loss is to BJ Penn
Let’s look at his wins and how he won them:
6 wins by submission
7 wins by strikes
3 wins by decision.
That means that in 5 years time of his 16 wins he only had to go to a decsion 3 times. That would make his fight stopping percentage about 81%!
Closer look:
He has fought more often then Penn.
Has a higher win rate than Penn.
Has a higher ko percentage than Penn.
The only saving factor for Penn, and what makes this a very interesting fight, is that Hughes actually lost to Penn. That being his only loss in 5 years time.
As I stated previously, I think that Hughes underestimated Penn at that time, as Penn was coming up from lightweight.
Absent the “underestimation factor” (for want of a better term) I don’t see Hughes losing to Penn.
In fact, without any current knowledge of either fighters prep work I am going to go out on a limb and say that Hughes will stop Penn sometime during those five rounds.
My gut tells me it will be sometime between the 3rd and 5th round, based on Hughes far superior conditioning and BJ’s now well known lack of conditioning. But it could be earlier.
One more look:
Strentgh-Hughes
Endurance-Hughes
Standing striking-Toss up-(Look at the records)
Submissions-Penn
Ground Striking (yes that’s important) Hughes.
Current Grappling ability and ground savvy-Toss up with a slight edge to Hughes because of his wrestling background and greater mat experience (more fights etc).
Mental Edge-Hughes. I see BJ as a minor head case. And Hughes will want revenge badly. In addition to this Hughes has fought more times (beyond the 5 years above he has another 26 fights under his belt dating back to 1998. That makes a total of 43 mma fights! He has also fought many more times within the UFC cage. Now throw in the fact that he is the current champion.
BJ’s only chance is to do what he did in their previous fight. That is, catch him in a submission in the first round as he did last time (4:39). But, as many have already stated, Hughes is a much improved fighter. Add to that the revenge factor and not underestimating Penn this time around. I don’t see him falling for the early moves.
I’ll give a more specific prediction (if anyone cares) as the fight gets closer. But, Penn is going to lose it’s just a matter of when and how!
[/quote]
Pretty good post. As awful as it sounds, I was kinda hoping to see Diego step in for GSP to see once and for all if he’s the real deal or not, because he looked pretty damn good against the heat.
I am getting a little, and I stress little, bored with the 3 man round-robin that is hughes, penn, gsp, and would love it they threw in diego.
Hate me for saying it, that’s just my opinion. Can’t wait for the fight for sure, though. Hughes all the way.
Agreed.
Agreed.
<Standing striking-Toss up-(Look at the records)>
Not even close. Penn all the way. Most of Hughes striking wins are through gnp. And lets not forget the caliber of who he beat standing. Now look at who Penn faced standing.(Gomi, GSP…) That being said I think it will go to the ground before Hughes gets into much trouble standing.
Huges is no slouch here either. The submission on GSP was majestic. If you have Bas’ DVD Matt shows how he did that sub. Slick as fuck. However, BJ has way better sub-defence. So overall BJ is better in subs. So agreed. LOL.
<Ground Striking (yes that’s important) Hughes.>
Agreed.
Some more attributes:
Take downs/TD defence: Hughes.
Flexibility BJ by far.
Resilence BJ. (Chin/cut resistance, etc.)
I think it all depends on BJ’s gas tank. If he comes in with decent endurance he will win. If not he will have to win in the 1st or 2nd or he will lose a decision.
But both these guys are so good you can’t look like a fool no matter who you pick as anything can happen.
Regardless this is going to be a great fight. 
AC
[quote]ZEB wrote:
Let’s move to a deeper analysis
First, let’s take a look at both of their records:
BJ Penn:
14 fights in 5 years.
10-3-1
Who did he lose to?
Jens Pulver, Ryoto Machida & Georges St. Pierre. And a 5 round draw with Caol Uno. 4 of the 10 wins were from strikes the rest submission. However, he has not stopped anyone with strikes since May of 2002.
I wonder how dangerous of a striker he really is?
Let’s now look at Matt Hughes record over the past 5 years:
17 fights in the past 5 years
16-1
Only loss is to BJ Penn
Let’s look at his wins and how he won them:
6 wins by submission
7 wins by strikes
3 wins by decision.
That means that in 5 years time of his 16 wins he only had to go to a decsion 3 times. That would make his fight stopping percentage about 81%!
Closer look:
He has fought more often then Penn.
Has a higher win rate than Penn.
Has a higher ko percentage than Penn.
The only saving factor for Penn, and what makes this a very interesting fight, is that Hughes actually lost to Penn. That being his only loss in 5 years time.
As I stated previously, I think that Hughes underestimated Penn at that time, as Penn was coming up from lightweight.
Absent the “underestimation factor” (for want of a better term) I don’t see Hughes losing to Penn.
In fact, without any current knowledge of either fighters prep work I am going to go out on a limb and say that Hughes will stop Penn sometime during those five rounds.
My gut tells me it will be sometime between the 3rd and 5th round, based on Hughes far superior conditioning and BJ’s now well known lack of conditioning. But it could be earlier.
One more look:
Strentgh-Hughes
Endurance-Hughes
Standing striking-Toss up-(Look at the records)
Submissions-Penn
Ground Striking (yes that’s important) Hughes.
Current Grappling ability and ground savvy-Toss up with a slight edge to Hughes because of his wrestling background and greater mat experience (more fights etc).
Mental Edge-Hughes. I see BJ as a minor head case. And Hughes will want revenge badly. In addition to this Hughes has fought more times (beyond the 5 years above he has another 26 fights under his belt dating back to 1998. That makes a total of 43 mma fights! He has also fought many more times within the UFC cage. Now throw in the fact that he is the current champion.
BJ’s only chance is to do what he did in their previous fight. That is, catch him in a submission in the first round as he did last time (4:39). But, as many have already stated, Hughes is a much improved fighter. Add to that the revenge factor and not underestimating Penn this time around. I don’t see him falling for the early moves.
I’ll give a more specific prediction (if anyone cares) as the fight gets closer. But, Penn is going to lose it’s just a matter of when and how!
[/quote]
I concur, but BJ’s striking is way better on the feet, no question. Should be a great fight.
[quote]ArcaneCocaine wrote:
And this is an interesting fight. I don’t think Matt can GNP BJ until the later rounds, and that’s if BJ gases which he might with only 4 weeks of training. Obviously Matt will get thrashed standing. Should be a great fight though.
[/quote]
According to BJPenn.com, Penn had already been training for a UFC fight scheduled for October. If that’s true, I don’t imagine it would be too tough for him to adjust his training to fight Hughes.
You missed the point. Hughes’ vast arsenal of submissions…haha, he is going against the best American jiu-jitsu practitioner ever, not Royce Gracie, but someone who actually won a BJJ tourney or two, even a small even called the mundials. bwahahaha.
[quote]solarflame wrote:
Controlling Hughes at any moment in the fight doesn’t add up to much when he turns it around and submits your ass. Its all just dancing until Hughes finds his moment.
Like Lidell’s fights. He’s going to end it sooner or later. Everything else up to that moment was just for fun. For us to watch and argue about.
Just like that fight with Crocop and Nog. Crocop was beating Nog by keeping it standing. It only took a moment to finally get Crocop on the ground and submit him.
All that strategy, domination and scored points gone by a submission. Not a lucky submission but a skilled one.
It doesn’t mean much to be controlling Hughes when he turns it around on you and he can at any time reach into his arsenal and pull out the win.[/quote]
Lets look at a deeper analysis of Penn’s record which none of you seem to acknowledge. He has never been KO’d or submitted. He has never benefitted from the judge’s decisions as I thought he won the Pulver fight(it was very close,) the Uno fight(it wasn’t even questionable,) and I most of you know I thought he won the GSP fight.
So, if another thing in favor of Hughes is judges decision, he scored a questionable decision against Charruto and has never given up a close decision. Hughes has the edge on the judges bias.
I don’t know how you can say Penn does not have the better standup, I would love to see Hughes try to stand with Penn. GSP wouldn’t. Penn stood with Ryoto machida, at a way heavier weight, machida had to win by using his weight and laying on Penn…if you don’t know who machida is, go to fight finder. Frickin ridiculous.
Submissions are not even. Skill wise Penn is one of the best ever.
Takedowns? I don’t know…who are we going to point to? GSP? He took both of them down. I know who scored the takedown in the last Hughes-Penn fight.
Heart? Penn gassed in one match. One time, there were reports of injury all the way up to the fight, and yet everybody points to that as a sure sign of Penn’s decline and demise. Blah, we can debate all we want, but come September we finally get to see.
When did BJ get the “best American jiu-jitsu practitioner ever” award? He didn’t show that with GSP. Where does GSP rate then if he beat BJ?
I haven’t seen the Penn you brag about show up yet. I have seen Hughes take care of business consistently unlike BJ leaving everyone wondering which Penn is going to show up to fight.
Matt’s got an answer for Penns over rated fighting prowess. Can’t wait to watch Penn fall again. Course we’ll blame it on bad conditioning or bad judging again.
[quote]slimjim wrote:
You missed the point. Hughes’ vast arsenal of submissions…haha, he is going against the best American jiu-jitsu practitioner ever, not Royce Gracie, but someone who actually won a BJJ tourney or two, even a small even called the mundials. bwahahaha.
solarflame wrote:
Controlling Hughes at any moment in the fight doesn’t add up to much when he turns it around and submits your ass. Its all just dancing until Hughes finds his moment.
Like Lidell’s fights. He’s going to end it sooner or later. Everything else up to that moment was just for fun. For us to watch and argue about.
Just like that fight with Crocop and Nog. Crocop was beating Nog by keeping it standing. It only took a moment to finally get Crocop on the ground and submit him.
All that strategy, domination and scored points gone by a submission. Not a lucky submission but a skilled one.
It doesn’t mean much to be controlling Hughes when he turns it around on you and he can at any time reach into his arsenal and pull out the win.
[/quote]
Look here genius, it is obvious you’ve been following the sport for all of the past two season’s of The Ultimate Fighter on Spike so I’ll break it down for you.
No non-Brazilian had ever won the BJJ championships, the mundials, BJ won the blackbelt division 3 weeks after being awarded his blackbelt…in 2000…at the age of 22.
What jiu-jitsu did GSP show in that last fight? The ability to lay on someone? Yeah, great display there.
[quote]solarflame wrote:
When did BJ get the “best American jiu-jitsu practitioner ever” award? He didn’t show that with GSP. Where does GSP rate then if he beat BJ?
I haven’t seen the Penn you brag about show up yet. I have seen Hughes take care of business consistently unlike BJ leaving everyone wondering which Penn is going to show up to fight.
Matt’s got an answer for Penns over rated fighting prowess. Can’t wait to watch Penn fall again. Course we’ll blame it on bad conditioning or bad judging again.
[/quote]
Yeah, we saw matt’s answer last time out…tap, tap, tap
Thanks for the compliments Slimjim. The Penn I saw fight GSP started out good. Later in the fight he didn’t do much. He must of gassed. I hear he is an awesome fighter. The statistitions will attest to that.
I have read about his conquests.Pretty impressive. On the other hand I have seen Hughes fights and his wins. Tough, skilled, and powerful. His oponents say this about him too.
To be honest with you I just think Hughes can beat him based on me watching Matt’s fights and him continuing to win.
I’ve only seen Penn fight once. I could only judge him by his rep and that one fight and thats not enough for me to say he can take the Hughes we see now.
Well thanks for straightning me out about all this and recognizing my intelligence level. Oh yah…bwahahahah!
Zeb, one point of contention that I have with your breakdown of their records…the quality of opponents, to compare records, you have to put things in perspective…he racked up a bunch of wins against subpar competition…with the exception of Penn’s first fight, all of his competition has been top-notch.
Don’t even point to his match with Renzo either, Renzo saw that as a do or die match and came in very prepared. Probably as good as he’s ever come into a fight.
Slimjim knows what he’s talking about.
As I said before Penn would destroy him standing. I don’t see how anyone could pick Matt to do anything standing besides go for a takedown, I think Matt probably ties his shoes laying down.
[quote]slimjim wrote:
Zeb, one point of contention that I have with your breakdown of their records…the quality of opponents, to compare records, you have to put things in perspective…he racked up a bunch of wins against subpar competition…with the exception of Penn’s first fight, all of his competition has been top-notch. [/quote]
Am I understanding this post correctly? Are you stating that Matt Hughes has racked up his record against sub par opponents?
Which of his opponents was sub par?
Frank Trigg who he beat twice?
Carlos Newton who he also beat twice?
GSP whom he submitted?
Sean Sherk?
Renato Verissimo?
Hayato Sakurai?
Hughes has fought everyone who the UFC and the fans considered a challenge.
In fact he may have fought not only more opponents but a higher quality than just about any other UFC champion!
I think what you meant to say was that they have both fought some very good opponents and come out on top.
Now say it the right way, or I’ll have to come through the screen and submit you.
[quote]ArcaneCocaine wrote:
Slimjim knows what he’s talking about.
As I said before Penn would destroy him standing. I don’t see how anyone could pick Matt to do anything standing besides go for a takedown, I think Matt probably ties his shoes laying down. ;)[/quote]
With all due respect to your point, you are thinking about the old Matt Hughes. As previously stated I give Penn the advantage standing. However, Hughes is good enough to exchange punches with Penn at any given moment. It’s not like all he is is a wrestler.
You’ll have to take a closer look at some of his more recent fights and how he has been training. He can also throw some pretty mean kicks.
In fact, if Penn underestimates his striking ability that will not bode well for his chance to beat Hughes.
My point is that some wrestlers who truly are one dimensional ground and pound fighers must strictly avoid trading punches with a good striker like Penn. Hughes, does not have to worry about that as he is mutli dimensional, and can punch and kick when the time is right.