Hughes Gracious in Defeat

UFC.com caught up with former UFC welterweight champion Matt Hughes following his tough submission loss to Georges “Rush” St. Pierre at UFC 79: Nemesis. A humble Matt Hughes told reporters that Georges St. Pierre was the better man and he had no excuses.

“Well first off I want to say I’ve got no excuses. I think I definitely prepared like I should have. We came in with a good strong game plan I just didn’t get it implemented so my hats off to Georges he fought a great fight, can’t say anything about it.

Yeah I’m disappointed. I’m a better fighter then that, getting stopped in the second round but you know you’ve got to take the bad with that good. I’m kind of at a loss for words. He’s a good guy, a good champion and I don’t really see anyone knocking his crown off to be honest. If I’m going to lose to somebody I’m glad it’s Georges St. Pierre and not somebody else, not somebody who couldn’t be as good a champion as he could be.”

When asked about his southpaw stance, Hughes said it was his old wrestling stance and coming into this fight he felt it might help him when trying to implement takedowns.

“That’s my wrestling stance. That’s what I wrestled all throughout high school and college and that’s what I started boxing as was a southpaw and so we thought, we came up with a game plan against Matt Serra because of his looping right hand so we thought it’d be the safe pocket for me to stay in. Then we got the Georges fight so you know we just thought my wrestling would be good on that side because my right foot is going to be forward and I’d have an easier time taking him down. So that was the game plan, to get back in my wrestling stance where I could take him down easy.

It kind of caught me off guard on the feet when we were both looking for takedowns. I got my mind kind of set on a takedown and in the middle of me thinking about my takedown and trying to implement it he took me down but me being on the bottom wasn’t the worst place for me. It didn’t bother me, I knew I could throw elbows from there and I had a chance to submit him here so that definitely wasn’t the end of the world for me being under Georges St. Pierre.

Definitely wanted to be on top of Georges, that’s where I was really going to work on him and try to do some damage but it didn’t happen for me. So he ended up with an armbar, what do you say, you know? I armbarred him the first time and then he armbars he the third time so there definitely could be Georges St. Pierre IV. I’ve got to work myself back up through the ranks. I might take some time off right now and see where my heart is at. So I’ll do some praying and we’ll see what goes on and I’ll come up with an answer.”

Even with the loss Matt Hughes is still a top 3 welterweight and one would think that depending on the outcome of St. Pierre vs. Serra II, a match between Hughes and Serra could still be brewing.