UFC Hall of Famer Matt Hughes was a guest on Undeniable with Joe Buck” in March; the segment airs on Wednesday at 8:00 p.m. ET/PT on DirecTV’s AUDIENCE Network general entertainment television channel. During it, Hughes expressed a common refrain among the hardcore MMA fanbase – that the sport does not feel as special as it once was.
The year Hughes and this site entered MMA, 1998, there were three events. By the time 2017 ends there will 39 shows for the year. There is very nearly everything right with the sport’s growth – thousands of fighters now make a living at it, for example, instead of the handful in ’98. Still, it’s no longer the cool thing that everyone gathered around the television for, and planned on for weeks.
I think it’s too commercial, said Hughes, as transcribed by MMAjunkie. They’ve got fights darn near every week [on] one of the three channels they’re on, and I think it’s too commercial. I am so happy that timing worked out for me where I fought when I did. I really think that I fought in the golden ages.
I started at UFC 22, and I don’t even know what my last one was – around 110 or 115 or something – but I think I was in the golden ages. It was when people got together to watch the UFC. It wasn’t – because they’re so often now.
They’re just not as special.”
For the record, Hughes’ last fight was UFC 135, a Round 1 KO loss to Josh Koscheck on September 24, 2011. It was the second first-round knockout loss in a row, and Hughes wisely retired. He had been hinting strongly at a comeback in Bellator MMA, but on June 16, 2017, Hughes was hospitalized with a serious head injury for many weeks after a train his truck at a crossing near his home. Mercifully Hughes is now out of the hospital, but an MMA comeback is likely out of the question.
