Would Matt Hughes be top 9 in today stacked welterweight division?

Explain to us how Matt Hughes would be too small. How much bigger do you think Tyron Woodley is?

You kidding ? Woodley is probably a few inches taller & clearly has more muscle to his frame.
 
Champion : Tyron Woodley woodley by ko
1 Stephen Thompson Matt get tool'd
2 Rafael Dos Anjos ^
3 Colby Covington Colby by better striking
4 Robbie Lawler lawler by ko
5 Demian Maia Matt get submitted
6 Jorge Masvidal masvidal by ko
7 Darren Till till by ko
8 Neil Magny mangy by UD
9 Kamaru Usman by whatever he want
In his prime yes. Prime hughes would beat everyone from 3-10 except for maia and maybe till. Till still has a lot to prove. Actually he'd probably beat woodley, so i only see maia and thompson as a challange
 
You kidding ? Woodley is probably a few inches taller & clearly has more muscle to his frame.

No he's not. Woodley is not a tall guy. Rogan is 5'8" and they are similar is size when Rogan is in shoes and Woodley is barefoot. Reference pics with Hughes and Rogan


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Huges was a tank in the day. Just because Woodley is black and ripped doesn't mean he's some Anthony Johnson type of weight cutting freak.

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No he's not. Woodley is not a tall guy. Rogan is 5'8" and they are similar is size when Rogan is in shoes and Woodley is barefoot. Reference pics with Hughes and Rogan


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Huges was a tank in the day. Just because Woodley is black and ripped doesn't mean he's some Anthony Johnson type of weight cutting freak.

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Pictures aren't everything.

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Hughes has always been jacked, but he has a little less muscle mass than Woodley. Hughes was always billed as 5'9" but I think he'd be more closer to 5'8" Woodley also has a much thicker lower body. They're not the same size.
 
Fighters that can stuff his takedown and light him up on the feet. his striking is piss poor, so is Colbys
 
Hughes would beat many guys in WW today. I am talking prime Hughes of course.. like UFC 60 Hughes.

I could really see him beating Maia by decision and not getting submitted and controlling the position. I could see him taking Masvidal down and controlling him too
 
Nah. His skills served for the time period he fought in,not now.
 
Colby actually shown some decent boxing in the Maia fight
He got tagged by like 10 left hands in a row from the same combo. He started to outstrike Maia when he gassed.
 
The thing is today there are alot of guys in the division with good tdd. And they pretty much all have better striking than Matt. He wouldn't win so many fights in this era imo.
 
Hughes, I feel, is vastly underrated in terms of the role he played in the development in MMA. He essentially showed who knows how many American wrestlers, including eventually smaller wrestlers, that there's this vast outlet to show the world what they can do outside the sideshow spectacle of WWE. He was arguably the first guy who showed what effective wrestling can do in this arena at a time when it was all about who can be the biggest possible BJJ wizard. That said, he would be way too undeveloped to hang with WWs whose standup is as good as it is now.
 
Alves was roided to the gills and significantly missed weight as well.
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USADA Alves
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lol what a hilarious transformation. It's like the picture above was him photoshopping himself with a jacked body. Pretty confident the majority of guys from that camp are/were on something. /insert Lombard, Alves and Romero pic.
 
Prime Matt? He would be top 3 given his skillset. Also if matchmaking allows him to avoid Maia that would be super.

He was doing what Khabib does before we even got Khabib. Prime Hughes was a bulldozer.

That’s not a fair comparison at all.

Matt actually fought more than once every two years, and Matt finished a lot of fights.
 
No. For one, I think people would be shocked at how small Hughes looks next to modern welterweights. Matt's wrestling would carry him against some guys, but the very best Matt Hughes ever would lose to almost all of the UFC Top 15.

He weighed 193 5 days out from the first BJ fight.

He likely weighed around 190-191 come fight time.

How much bigger than that can you get?
 
He would be top 10.he had perfect MMA wrestling/subs. Great transitions. And he was tough.
 
Not really fair to Hughes. He wouldn't do too well simply because he was very one dimensional and todays fighters are much more well rounded than before.

If Hughes was fighting today he would have beeb more well rounded because of better competition and training partners.

He and Robbie were training partners.
 
Not even top 15. Even guys like Kos slay him. He fought in the weakest 1 dimensional weight class of all time. Nothing but 1 dimensional fighters when he fought.
 
Champion : Tyron Woodley woodley by ko
1 Stephen Thompson Matt get tool'd
2 Rafael Dos Anjos ^
3 Colby Covington Colby by better striking
4 Robbie Lawler lawler by ko
5 Demian Maia Matt get submitted
6 Jorge Masvidal masvidal by ko
7 Darren Till till by ko
8 Neil Magny mangy by UD
9 Kamaru Usman by whatever he want

On Matt's best day, he might beat 3, MAYBE 4 of those guys. I'm not saying he would beat them, just that he might on his best day. He would not sniff the top 5.

Nothing against Matt, but the sport evolves. Royce would beat zero of those guys.
 
Could Hughes make 155? He would be undersized for today's WW division.
 
This takes nothing away from Matt's legacy which is one of the very best of all time. But he is a product of his time period, just like Fedor was too. Both legends, but both not really able to cut it against modern competition.
 
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