Former long time Welterweight champion and future hall of fame inductee Matt Hughes (43 - 7) gave his thoughts regarding Anderson Silva’s devastating first round KO over Forrest Griffin at UFC 101: ‘Declaration’ “It was a brilliant performance put on by Anderson that was tainted by unnecessary showboating, I thought that was unsportsmanlike like – we don’t tolerate that sort of stuff at my gym. Forrest didn’t help his cause trying to stand with someone who we all knew coming into the fight was the more technical striker of the two. I think what it really comes down to in my opinion was bad coaching, with a better gameplan I believe Forrest would have made that fight a lot more competitive and done a lot better that he did. Not once did Griffin look to initiate the clinch or try for a takedown”
Hughes then went onto address questions on a potential showdown between himself and Anderson at middleweight “I’ll fight whoever the UFC put in front of me. I can make 185 no problem but of course I would need to add some muscle just to close the gap in the weight difference, but as far as me fighting Anderson – I’m in the sport for the challenges and I think beating Anderson Silva would be a great accomplishment, so yeah I would like that fight. I’ve actually wanted to fight him for years ever since he beat Rich [Franklin] and at this point a rematch with Georges seems unlikely so I’m all for a fight with Anderson. “
