When Joe Riggs-Matt Hughes fight was announced...

Longtime fan here (see join date):

I remember when the fight was announced no one really gave Riggs much of a chance but at the time Hughes was pretty much cleaning out the division so it was as good a fight as any.
 
Slight hajick but I think a lot of people also picked Karo over Hughes.
 
I remember Hughes getting a lot of praise for taking the fight after Riggs didn't make weight because it wasn't a title fight anymore. Had he lost it would have been a clusterfuck.

Slick kimura though
 
iloveufc123 said:
Joe Riggs had power so yeah I mean I guess
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That's true, at the time he was more of a boxer/strike, he had amazing boxing skills, one of the best even by todays standards. However he couldent pull it together for the Hughes fight. He did hit Matt with a great lead hook when Matt attempted a clinch.

PTSDtreatment said:
Let me check my diary from many years ago to answer the first question. Will come back to the next 3 questions after that. While your waiting, perhaps you could answer:

What made you wait all these years to start this thread?

How did you live with not getting Sherdogger's answers all these years? Could make for a good self-help book.

Did you fall into in a coma right after this event and then only wake up recently? If so, I highly recommend buying a non-flip cellphone and deleting your myspace account.
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I was cleaning out my closet and I found UFC 56 which was the FIRST video I bought when it came to UFC/Pride. I lived through the years by being caught in the momentum of life and not having the time to reflect on the past. I have never fall in to a coma, I do have a flip phone to this day but I have never had MySpace or any type of social media.


BOTTICELLI said:
Riggs said in the promo

"Hughes is sweating bullets right now!"


LOL
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In the dvd, lots of his trash talking was cut but I remember before the fight, he said something along the lines of "after the fight, instead of saying Matt Hughes, people are going to be Matt who?"

I thought that it was a decent line and he came off intentionally looking super smug as oppose to now a days where he looks like a tired old man :(


HAWTRIDDUM said:
From what i remember, riggs was only given a chance by a few hopefuls on here.

Riggs and hughes were connected in the fact that many of the milititch fighters also did work with riggs coach billy rush(rip).
It wasnt much of a secret that riggs was a world beater in the gym. He would regularly outclass rich franklin and the other fighters.
Riggs was also known for having bad anxiety issues, and tended to fold under pressure during bigger fights.

When Joe Rogan refers to fighters that are world beaters in the gym but can't handle the pressure of the crowds and spotlight, he is referring to Riggs.

Most on here leaned towards hughes back then regardless of the gym stories.

I was pissed that the karo and hughes fight never happed when they both were in their primes. That would have been very interesting.
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I have heard so many stories from Rogan and Jorge Gurgle about how Riggs used to OWN Rich when it came to boxing sparring and how he used to out box Rich like he was a weak beginner.
 
It wasn't awful, but it wasn't great. Riggs had just "finished" Lytle with some of the nastiest gnp ever one month earlier, but just 6 months before that, Ivan Salaverry had triangled him in 2 minutes.

Joe was a very dangerous fighter, but Hughes was expected to win. Most probably expected it to go the way it went. I didnt. I had hear the rumors of Riggs being a beast in the gym and, with his only two losses since dropping weight coming via triangle, it seemed like maybe Hughes wouldn't be able to capitalize on his weaknesses so easily. I was wrong.

Hughes probably would've won anyway, but I think Riggs no-showed that one.
 
Sosuke Aizen said:
I hold this event close to my heart because UFC 56 was the first even that made me want to follow this sport and yet I have few questions for you guys. So the fight was suppose to be Matt Hughes vs Karo Parisyan and Karo hurt his hamstring and pulled out.

So then Joe took the fight and there was some controversy with the weight issue, it seemed that he made weight but officials fucked up and by the time they fixed the scale, Riggs rehydrated and so because of the mistake, Dana didn't give him shit for not making weight.

Now here are my questions:

When it was announced Riggs was fighting Hughes, what was the general reaction on this forum?

Did you guys think Riggs had a chance or was a dangerous opponent to Hughes?

What did you think of Riggs vs Hughes fight?

Had Riggs trained fully for the fight, could he have beaten Hughes?
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This was a big event for me too. Riggs cut a really good promo and rogan was selling him hard as unstoppable in camp.
I was on another forum back then but the general consensus was that riggs was a legit challenge .
That fight was so disappointing , like the first gsp fight. But Hughes was destroying anyone who made a mistake back then.
 
Last edited:
Damn, that's when I signed up for this forum.
 
goodfella69 said:
It wasn't awful, but it wasn't great. Riggs had just "finished" Lytle with some of the nastiest gnp ever one month earlier, but just 6 months before that, Ivan Salaverry had triangled him in 2 minutes.

Joe was a very dangerous fighter, but Hughes was expected to win. Most probably expected it to go the way it went. I didnt. I had hear the rumors of Riggs being a beast in the gym and, with his only two losses since dropping weight coming via triangle, it seemed like maybe Hughes wouldn't be able to capitalize on his weaknesses so easily. I was wrong.

Hughes probably would've won anyway, but I think Riggs no-showed that one.
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I remember the Lytle fight and it was one of the best DAMN fights I have ever seen!!!!

I remember Riggs starting with a head kick that almost took Lytles head off and right then, they went to a clinch and takedowns. Besides the insane ground and pound. Riggs almost caught him in an omoplata but lost it and continued the ground and pound and damaged Lytle really badly!


EpicFail said:
This was a big event for me too. Rings cut a really good promo and rogan was selling him hard as unstoppable in camp.
I was on another forum back then but the general consensus was that riggs was a legit challenge .
That fight was so disappointing , like the first gsp fight. But Hughes was destroying anyone who made a mistake back then.
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I do remember the promo but for some reason they cut so much of the good stuff out from DVD which got me pissed since there was lots of footage was missing from the DVD that they showed pre-fight on spike.
 
I thought Lytle beat Serra too.

Crazy how close this guy came to a title fight.
 
I vaguely remember Riggs sort of hung around with the Miletich guys a lot, so when he took the fight against "teammate", it was taboo. He also talked some shit and then underperformed. Hughes handled him easy.
 
GSP_37 said:
I vaguely remember Riggs sort of hung around with the Miletich guys a lot, so when he took the fight against "teammate", it was taboo. He also talked some shit and then underperformed. Hughes handled him easy.
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Team gyms are a horrible concept if you want to be a serious pro MMA fighter. Boxing has it right, when you are a , you train with your coach and for sparring, you either hire sparring partners or have a trusted friend who also happens to be a same level boxer to help you out.

This is how Conor operates, he has his head coach and trusted training partners.
 
GSP_37 said:
I vaguely remember Riggs sort of hung around with the Miletich guys a lot, so when he took the fight against "teammate", it was taboo. He also talked some shit and then underperformed. Hughes handled him easy.
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To be fair he had to take the fight. Riggs told me that UFC was short on challengers and the show had to go on. So he was somewhat strong armed in taking the fight.
 
Ogata said:
To be fair he had to take the fight. Riggs told me that UFC was short on challengers and the show had to go on. So he was somewhat strong armed in taking the fight.
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Lol at bumping a nearly 5 year old thread. You shameless bum.
 
DaleBoca said:
Lol at bumping a nearly 5 year old thread. You shameless bum.
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I thought about this thread and seeing Conor infested thread, I said to myself, why not ask it again without making new thread.
 
I recall just being bummed that Karo was out. It was really underwhelming on paper.
 
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