Kamaru Usman never surpassed Matt Hughes

achoo42

achoo42

Purple Belt
@purple
Joined
Dec 2, 2020
Messages
1,803
Reaction score
3,575
I'm always surprised when people place Usman ahead of Hughes and had him threatening GSP. I think it's a clear case of recency bias at play. Let's compare their title wins by using Fight Matrix historical rankings of each title contender at the time of their fights.

Matt Hughes:
Carlos Newton (#1)
Hayato Sakurai (#6)
Carlos Newton (#5)
Gil Castillo (#3)
Sean Sherk (#2)
Frank Trigg (#2)
GSP (#9)
Frank Trigg (#4)
BJ Penn (#3)

Kamaru Usman:
Tyron Woodley (#1)
Colby Covington (#3)
Jorge Masvidal (#2)
Gilbert Burns (#3)
Jorge Masvidal (#4)
Colby Covington (#2)

Even if you give Usman's wins more weight due to modern welterweight being deeper, I still think it's pretty clear that Hughes' resume is on the same level, if not better.

In fact, the only two fighters on Hughes' title resume who weren't top 5 welterweights at the time he fought them are GSP and Sakurai, which in hindsight are two of his most impressive wins. So GSP and Sakurai were underrated at the time while Colby and Masvidal were arguably overrated in their rematches.

To sum it up, Hughes had more title wins against a bigger variety of opponents, and his best wins are as good as Usman's best wins.

I just don't see why everyone's so sure that Usman is ahead of Hughes as a champion. He needed the win over Edwards to make the argument.
 
Last edited:
Soggust said:
The argument for Usman is that title defenses aren't everything and 15 straight UFC wins is pretty hard to do.
Click to expand...

But even with the argument that title defenses aren't everything...Matt Hughes was 41-4 at one point in his career. Surely that counts for something, like Usman's win streak.

Also when you're talking about GOAT discussion title wins tend to be the main point of discussion. There's guys with crazy win streaks who don't get put in the GOAT discussion for their weight class because they were never champion, like Tony Ferguson. And win for win, Cowboy and Poirier have twice the resume that Khabib does. But the fact that they were never champion precludes them from the GOAT LW discussion.
 
Soggust said:
The argument for Usman is that title defenses aren't everything and 15 straight UFC wins is pretty hard to do.
Click to expand...
This. Matt had 3 completely separate and single fights in the UFC, even losing the last one in just 20 seconds (2-1), and yet he came straight into his full UFC run in a title shot against Newton. Of course counting only title fights benefits him. Usman had to get 9 straight wins before his fights could revolve around the title.
 
Blanqa Blanqua said:
Their careers are in such different times, different landscapes.

Why not just celebrate that they are both great records?
Click to expand...
that is just impossible to do in todays landscape. we must always put the most recent as the best, and question/downplay any prior reigns, or feats. it is only as relevant as the latest
 
Mohawk Banditó said:
This. Matt had 3 completely separate and single fights in the UFC, even losing the last one in just 20 seconds (2-1), and yet he came straight into his full UFC run in a title shot against Newton. Of course counting only title fights benefits him. Usman had to get 9 straight wins before his fights could revolve around the title.
Click to expand...

Well of course only counting title fights benefits fighters who win more title fights.

It was a different time. Back then, the UFC wasn't some kind of special indicator of quality like it is today where beating the low ranked UFC fighters is better than fighting in the other various promotions. Especially with the welterweight division being practically brand new. Half the best middleweights and welterweights in the world were in Japan at that point. If you want to make the argument that Usman is greater because the UFC wasn't nearly as deep as it is today, that's fine. But to penalize Hughes for not fighting 10 prior UFC fights before getting the title shot ignores the historical circumstances.

Also if you want to bring dominance into the discussion, compare the finish rates of Hughes and Usman.
 
As a general rule I'm all about title defenses and I'm a firm believer that "they don't ask how, they ask how many".

But with Hughes asking how may be important. They had to wake him up to tell him he was champ because he was choked unconscious. Then he dropped his strap to a LW and a few of those title fights were contested while the best WW was outside the org.

Usman was awake for his whole run and he was the best in the world for his whole run.
 
orca said:
thats right but the fighters that usman fought was far better than hughes
far harder
matt hughes wont be even top 10 today
Click to expand...

Because sports evolve. That doesn't mean that you just discount any pioneer's resume because they would lose today. You measure how good their opponents were for their time, not compared to modern times.

Same reason why people consider Jack Dempsey one of the greatest heavyweights of all time even though he would lose to middleweights today.

Hell, in 2050 we might have cybernetic UFC fighters who can jump fifty feet and punch through walls. That doesn't make GSP a bum.

GSP, Sakurai, Sean Sherk, BJ Penn are objectively great wins for Hughes' time and match up to Usman's best wins.
 
GOATtalks said:
Somehow you forgot that Usman also beat guys like Edwards, RDA, Maia and Strickland even before he got to fight for the title.
Click to expand...

OK. Usman has a better overall resume than Hughes. Hughes was a greater champion though. And he also consistently finished fights throughout his entire career.
 
I agree with TS they are pretty similar but I'd give the edge to Hughes. He was more important for the sport at the time
 
achoo42 said:
I'm always surprised when people place Usman ahead of Hughes and had him threatening GSP. I think it's a clear case of recency bias at play. Let's compare their title wins to settle this discussion once and for all, by using Fight Matrix historical rankings of each title contender at the time of their fights.

Matt Hughes:
Carlos Newton (#1)
Hayato Sakurai (#6)
Carlos Newton (#5)
Gil Castillo (#3)
Sean Sherk (#2)
Frank Trigg (#2)
GSP (#9)
Frank Trigg (#4)
BJ Penn (#3)

Kamaru Usman:
Tyron Woodley (#1)
Colby Covington (#3)
Jorge Masvidal (#2)
Gilbert Burns (#3)
Jorge Masvidal (#4)
Colby Covington (#2)

Even if you give Usman's wins more weight due to modern welterweight being deeper, I still think it's pretty clear that Hughes is ahead.

In fact, the only two fighters on Hughes' title resume who weren't top 5 welterweights at the time he fought them are GSP and Sakurai, which in hindsight are two of his most impressive wins. So GSP and Sakurai were underrated at the time while Colby and Masvidal were arguably overrated in their rematches.

To sum it up, Hughes had more title wins against a bigger variety of opponents, and his best wins are as good as Usman's best wins.

I just don't see an argument for Usman being definitively ahead of Hughes. He needed the win over Edwards to start the discussion, and then beating Khamzat would have put him ahead.
Click to expand...

Most people ranking Usman ahead werent even watching MMA when Hughes was reigning.

MMA fans are mostly retarded when it comes to recency bias with every new champ being GOAT and bullshit. Youre right Matt is 2nd for sure.
 
Big Usman fan, but he didn’t surpass Hughes career. Hughes had tons of high profile wins, two tithe reigns (second one was pretty weak overall) and Hughes also took some off his rivals gsp and bj Penn

Usman is a better mma fighter than Hughes prime vs prime imo but Hughes got the better resume
 
OldAccountGotBannedLOL said:
Matt Hughes would be Belal Muhammed/Brady level today.
Click to expand...

So? Royce Gracie would lose to regional fighters today, doesn't mean he's not one of the greatest to ever do it.

Also, I don't recall Belal Muhammad being a submission or ground and pound threat.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Forum statistics

Threads
1,237,147
Messages
55,470,174
Members
174,787
Latest member
Biden's Diaper

Share this page

Back
Top