Hughes vs. Serra in UFC 98 grudge match

Written by Grady Roy   |   Tuesday, May 19 2009

Matt Serra has only fought once since his upset welterweight title victory.  He'll be back in the octagon at UFC 98 to settle his long standing war of words with Matt Hughes. (Photo: UFC)

On May 23rd at UFC 98, MMA fans will be treated to what could be an unbelievable matchup between Matt Hughes and Matt Serra.  From the internet buzz up to this point, it seems that many fans are overlooking this match and already consider it to be a snoozer.  To the contrary—it has the potential to be an epic confrontation.

While Hughes and Serra have never met inside the octagon,  there has been a verbal war between these two fighters that may unrivaled in the sport. It all started on season 4 of ‘The Ultimate Fighter’ where Serra was a contestant and eventual winner  and Hughes was a coach.  Serra felt the Hughes mistreated guest coach Georges St Pierre and made sure his teammates knew how he felt calling Hughes a “stuck up farm boy jock” among other things.

On Season 6 of ‘The Ultimate Fighter’ Hughes and Serra were opposing coaches on the UFC’s MMA reality show.  Words were exchanged, nasty impersonations of each other were cast and neither one took the insults of the other lightly.  Serra referred to Hughes as an “egomaniac” while Hughes accused Serra of suffering from “little-man complex”.  The two were set to settle the score at UFC 79, but Serra suffered an injury while training and herniated two discs in his back forcing him to withdraw from the fight.  Instead Hughes faced current champ George St Pierre and lost by a 2nd round submission.  Later at UFC 83, Serra suffered the same fate as he lost his title to St Pierre via TKO in the 2nd round.

A year and a half later, fight fans will finally get to witness this long overdue collision of Serra and Hughes at UFC 98.

"I want the W obviously, but more than anything I want to give a beating to Matt Hughes.... I just think that it will be justice. It will be the good guys winning", said the 34-year old Serra. "I plan on being the nail in Hughes' coffin. Let's send him packing. Who the hell wants that guy around anymore? Not me."

"Here I'm fighting a guy that has said so much about me, it's easy motivation for me...it's really not his lack of respect, it's what he's said about me in such a public light", said Hughes, 35. "I want to fight that guy who ran his mouth the whole season 6 of The Ultimate Fighter. Matt Serra's run his mouth enough to where all I want to do is hit it now. I think that's the only way to shut him up, is to hit his mouth"

This is an intriguing matchup pitting Serra’s heavy hands and top flight jiu-jitsu  against Hughes’ excellent submission defense and nasty ground and pound attack.

One essential question:  Just how effective will Serra’s striking be against Hughes who is 3-4 inches taller? Serra will be forced to keep Hughes at a distance with the jab or work basic combinations.  If taken down to the mat will Serra be able to work on submission attempts against Hughes’ relentless ground game?  Another huge question concerns the two fighters’ conditioning as both have been a little short “on gas” in their most recent fights.  Given the disdain between these two, however, one would expect them to show up in top form. 

Ultimately, it remains to be seen at UFC 98 whether Matt Hughes and Matt Serra bring the kind of intensity into their long await fight that they have into the lengthy ‘war of words’ that has preceeded it.

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