Sherdog’s Top 10: Greatest Welterweights

3. Matt Hughes

In the early to mid-2000s, Hughes set the standard for dominant champions and was frequently cited as the best pound-for-pound fighter in the sport. That is not to say that he was perfect or unbeatable. Hughes was submitted twice by Dennis Hallman, the first time in 17 seconds and the second in 20, and was kneed into oblivion by Jose Landi-Jons. After becoming UFC welterweight champion, he was dominated and submitted by B.J. Penn at UFC 46. However, against those four losses, Hughes had a dizzying 41 wins before facing Georges St. Pierre for a second time. Among those triumphs, Hughes had submitted St. Pierre in their first meeting, garnered revenge against Penn at UFC 63 in a tremendous comeback performance, finished Frank Trigg twice with first-round submissions, defeated previous UFC welterweight champion Carlos Newton twice (to be fair, the first fight was an amusing and rare double knockout), and beaten up a bunch of dangerous contenders like future lightweight champion Sean Sherk, lightweight legend Hayato Sakurai, Joe Riggs, Renato Verissimo, Joe Doerksen and Akihiro Gono.

Hughes started out as a great wrestler, added legendary ground-and-pound and stifling top control to that formula as well as an excellent BJJ game, exceptionally rare for his time. He also had limitless cardio and some of the greatest toughness and heart the sport has ever seen, orchestrating amazing comebacks in fights where he appeared to be dead to rights. His striking and defense improved over the years, to the point where he knocked out Renzo Gracie with his boxing in one of his last victories, but it was always a relatively weak point. By the time that St. Pierre won the rematch, Hughes's style was beginning to get antiquated, and he also suffered losses to elite welterweight contenders Thiago Alves and Josh Koscheck, though he was still good enough to win against Chris Lytle, bitter rival Matt Serra, and Ricardo Almeida in addition to the aforementioned knockout of Almeida's mentor Gracie. Hughes was an amazing champion for a very long time and comes in a well-deserved third on this list.

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