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| TUF6: Farmer VS Terror |
David West |
The Ultimate Fighter 6 will see a war between two men who truly hate each other, Matts Serra and Hughes!
If there’s one thing that Dana White knows is money in the bank, it’s a bitter rivalry based on mutual disrespect, name-calling and insults – and, In a Tale Of Two Matts, he’s got himself an absolute doozy. With Messrs Hughes and Serra set in opposite corners of the sixth season of The Ultimate Fighter, the hype machine will be in full effect by the time the two warriors hear the cage door slam shut for the hotly anticipated showdown in December. For a promoter and huckster like White, this is what dreams are made of – the dreams of avarice.
THE FARMER
Unless you think that the UFC is an upstart chain of fried chicken restaurants you should know full well who Matt Hughes is, but let’s take a moment to recap just what a tough farm boy we’re talking about here. Born in Hillsboro, Illinois – a town with a population of 4,500 – Hughes was an All-American wrestler at Eastern Illinois University prior to starting his MMA career in 1998, fighting for a small-time promotion in the state before beginning a run on Monte Cox’s Extreme Challenge events.
His performances there led to Cox becoming his manager and UFC Champion Pat Miletich asking Hughes to train with him in Davenport, Iowa. But he very nearly walked away from the sport altogether back in 2001, when he endured back-to-back losses to Dennis Hallman and Jose Landi-Jons. Hughes was ready to go back to the farm for good, but Cox and Miletich persuaded him to stick with it – and the results have seen him become one of the top pound-for-pound fighters in the world.
Hughes’ superb wrestling is complemented by his prodigious strength and, under Miletich, he has developed a dangerous submission game. Veteran Frank Trigg is an All-American wrestler himself but, in his first match with Hughes, the Hillsboro farmer picked him up and carried him across the cage like he was out for a Sunday stroll, until he drilled Trigg into the canvas with a crushing slam. He’s simply a corn-fed powerhouse.
He went on to amass a staggering record of 40 wins and just 5 losses, which is all the more impressive when you look at the list of names thaht he has conquered: Trigg, Carlos Newton, Hayato Sakurai, BJ Penn, Royce Gracie… He was the simply the most dominant champion that the UFC has ever seen, obliterating Newton to win his first Welterweight Title [see page 77] and then defending it five times before losing it to Penn in their first clash in 2004.
He reclaimed the belt later that year by tapping out Georges St-Pierre, enjoying a string of six straight victories before losing the belt back to an inspired GSP in the rematch last November. However, St-Pierre promptly lost the belt to Matt Serra in his very first title defence, proving that it’s one thing to win a title, but it takes something truly special to hang onto it – especially in the dominant manner that Hughes did.
Crushing Chris Lytle earlier this year and securing a title shot, Hughes remains ever the good ol’ country boy. He eschews the raucous rap-metal entrance music preferred by most fighters in favour of the hicktastic A Country Boy Can Survive by Hank Williams Jr. He’s a clean living, hard working, God-fearing, All-American guy. And Matt Serra – the man now holding what was once Hughes’ belt – hates his guts with a vengeance.
THE TERROR
Where Matt Hughes’ blog is full of Biblical stories and posts about how the crops are doing, Matt “The Terror” Serra is a fast-talking, wisecracking Italian-American from Long Island, Noo Yawk. Where Hughes is a wrestler, Serra’s discipline of choice is Brazilian Ju Jitsu. Serra’s father was a martial artist and gave his teenage son one of the now famous Gracie Jiu-Jitsu In Action videotapes, in which various members of Brazil’s first family of fighting used their grappling skills to quickly demolish a host of challengers in bare knuckle fights.
Just as Serra finished high school, Renzo Gracie opened an academy in Manhattan, so Matt moved to the big city and threw himself into his Ju Jitsu training, becoming the first American to be awarded a black belt by Renzo himself. “He’s a great guy,” Serra has said of his mentor. “I wouldn’t be here without him.” Along the way, Serra racked up wins at numerous BJJ tournaments and made his mixed martial arts debut fighting in unlicensed events held in New York, where professional MMA is still illegal so the fights were billed instead as ‘freestyle grappling tournaments’.
His UFC 31 debut ended in disaster when Shonie Carter knocked him out with a spectacular spinning backfist, while in his second Octagon appearance he beat Yves Edwards by majority decision. At UFC 36 he submitted Kelly Dullanty but, when he stepped up against top-flight opposition, he lost to both
BJ Penn and Din Thomas. He came back to beat Jeff Curran and Ivan Menjivar before losing to Karo Parisian by unanimous decision in 2005, after which he fell off the UFC radar before making the cut for The Ultimate Fighter 4: The Comeback – the season geared towards giving veteran fighters another bite of the octagonal apple.
His strong personality and quick wit made him a standout on the show but he came into conflict with Mark Laimon, the BJJ instructor on the series, who disparaged the Gracies after Royce lost to Matt Hughes at UFC 60. When Hughes showed up unannounced as a guest advisor, his high opinion of himself (coupled with his peculiar habit of referring to himself in the third person) rubbed many of the fighters the wrong way and had Serra bristling.
After Hughes talked trash Georges St-Pierre, Serra called him “a stuck-up farm boy jock”. Hughes then deliberately stirred up the conflict between Serra and Laimon, trying to goad Serra into accepting a Ju Jitsu match by asking, “You’re not dodging him, are you?” “What are you getting at, Hughes?” shot back Serra, who went on to win the season by beating Chris Lytle in the TUF4 Finale, earning himself a title shot at St-Pierre. He was a heavy underdog and, on paper, it looked like a sure thing for the defending champion. Serra had lost every time he’d faced top-level competition and he was giving up both height and reach to the Canadian champion.
But he surprised everyone, not least GSP, by trading punches with the champ and knocking him utterly senseless, getting the TKO after 3:25 of round one in which St-Pierre had been battered all over the cage by The Terror from Long Island. Matt Hughes was ringside and, when the camera was on him following the stoppage, he was laughing out loud, pausing only to mouth “I love it!” straight to the camera. Not his classiest moment, and it didn’t go unnoticed.
THE FEUD
At the time of Hughes’ display of sour grapes, Serra was too busy enjoying his shiny new belt and the thrill of having pulled off a huge upset in the process. But when he watched the tape of the fight later on, he wasn’t impressed by Hughes’ behaviour. In an interview on Fox News Fight Game, Serra didn’t pull any punches. “Now he’s happy for one of two reasons,” he told the host when asked about Hughes’ cocky behaviour. “Either he’s happy that he’s going to fight me next or he’s happy that Georges took a beating. So either way he’s an asshole.”
After winning the title, Serra has been nothing but complimentary about the man he defeated, praising St-Pierre’s toughness and never talking trash about the ex-champion. But when it came to Hughes, no kind word ever passed his lips. “I don’t like bullies, I despise them,” he told another interviewer. “He’s a very arrogant guy and I think you should treat people the way you want to be treated. He’s a dick and I would love to fight him.” The cash register in Dana White’s head rang like a fire alarm.
The most successful pay-per-views in UFC history were the result of White’s ability to market the rivalries he has fostered in the sport, such as Randy Couture and Chuck Liddell or Tim Sylvia and Andrei Arlovski. In particular, the Tito Ortiz/Ken Shamrock hatefest that was season three of The Ultimate Fighter [see page 72] resulted in the UFC’s biggest ever PPV up to that point, with UFC 61 breaking records despite the fight between the two team coaches being a one-sided beatdown that was over in 81 seconds.
For season five of TUF, White brought in BJ Penn and Jens Pulver to lead the two squads of hopefuls. That resulted in BJ totally dominating Jens in their rematch on the season finale, but a strangely uncooperative Penn stormed out of the cage following his win, leaving a perplexed Joe Rogan alone live on television. For season six, Dana would need another top set of rivals, but people he knew would be loyal to his organisation; Hughes had already been a team coach on season two, while Serra was the winner of season four and had just beaten the guy who beat Hughes. It simply couldn’t have been booked any better…
For the rest of this feature, check out issue 19 of FSM – available at WH Smith and all good retailers. (For US readers we are now carried at Borders, so check for local availability or click here to subscribe.)
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