UFC 65 – The Defeat!
I really can’t say I was surprised at all at the result of UFC 65’s fight between Matt Hughes and George St. Pierre. There was a time when I thought Rich Franklin and Matt Hughes were virtually unbeatable but after seeing Franklin get dominated by Silva, I realized that Franklin was not as dominant as he had once seemed. Why this sort of thing happens to fighters is debatable. Maybe they get complacent, maybe other fighters study their style and because of the success the champion has had, they don’t make enough changes to their game so they eventually get picked apart. Silva brought something to the fight against Franklin that was unexpected — a strong game in the clinch. In the Hughes fight, it appeared that Hughes was totally unprepared. St. Pierre looked dominant for the entire fight. St. Pierre looked very focused and had obviously trained on numerous aspects of his game, most notably – his standup. I was shocked that Hughes did not try to take St. Pierre down more often, but perhaps he was discouraged by St. Pierre’s sprawls and also because it has always been a wish of Hughes to be able to have that knock out threat that other fighters boast. For Hughes, it appeared to be a matter of pride and by the time his corner would have chosen strategy over pride, it was all but too late. St. Pierre used a stunning combination of jabs setting up low and high kicks that Hughes could not manage to block. After Hughes was stunned, it was over. St. Pierre knocked Hughes down in the first round with seconds to go and the only thing that saved Hughes was the end of the round. Hughes came out in the second round even more lifeless than his tentative onset in the first round. Within a matter of a few minutes, it was all over with St. Pierre catching Hughes with a high kick to the side of Hughes head, bringing him down to the canvas. Hughes followed with some mounted punches but it was the elbows that came shortly after that caused McCarthy to stop the fight. And there we have it, both champions dethroned — next up is Liddell.