Matt Hughes' Blog - Week Two

By Matt Hughes UFC.COM

We had some good practices this week, and though there’s a big difference between the practice room and the actual fight, I was real happy with what I saw in the practice room, so I knew that I had guys that were gonna work hard and guys that were feeding off each other, and that’s one of the reasons why I picked the guys I did. I wanted them to be able to work together, and when that practice took off and those guys worked as hard as they did, I was really happy.

Some people don’t understand this, since we’re competing in an individual sport, but the team carries a big role in fighting. It was still the second week, people were still fresh and hadn’t gotten on each other’s nerves yet, so the team concept wasn’t as important in the first part of the show, but having been on the show previously, I knew that it was going to play a huge role at the end. So when I saw them practicing together the way they did and staying together the way they did, I knew that it was gonna help these guys out at the end of the show.

This week I was able to give Bibles out to my team, and everyone knows that my faith and being able to read the Bible and the stories is a huge part of my life, but my number one reason for giving Bibles out was that those guys only know two things while they’re on the show – the house and the gym – and I was giving them a third avenue to go to. When they go on the show they get their cell phones and their reading material taken away, and there’s no TV, so there’s nothing for them to read or do, and that’s why there’s so much excitement on the show – because they get bored. I gave them something where they got to read, they had something else to do, and something else to think about for a little while. I thought that would be big for these guys, to let them come into the gym, relax a little bit, and read. I couldn’t get them anything else to read, but I was able to talk them into giving them Bibles.

I wasn’t worried about any negative reaction from the guys because I really stressed the point that if you wanted to read, you could, if you don’t want to read, you don’t have to. Mac (Danzig) didn’t want to read, and a couple times I told him, ‘hey, it may be interesting to you. You don’t have to take some faith from it and I’m not trying to change your mind or anything, but there are some really interesting stories, in the Old Testament especially.’ But he didn’t want to, so I didn’t ask him anymore when I got the impression that he wasn’t going to.

As a starting point, I picked the Book of Esther because it was a short story, a good story, and it showed that the Queen was there for her people. In applying that story to what we were going through, I wanted those guys to know that I was put in my position to help them as a coach. I wanted them to know that I was there for them.

This week’s fight saw Dorian Price take on Team Serra’s Matt Arroyo. Dorian is a Muay Thai specialist and I was definitely worried about his ground game, but I wasn’t going to let Dorian know that I was worried about it or that I was sweating the matchup. So I pulled Dorian to the side and said ‘hey, we’ve got to keep this standing. This is where our chances lie in winning the fight.’ I tried to sound as positive as I could, and when Dorian and I went over our gameplan, it was defending the takedown at all costs and getting punches off whenever you can to make him afraid of coming in and trying to take you down.

The fight didn’t go our way and Dorian got submitted, but what I wanted to get across to him is that everybody’s gonna get beat. If you’ve not lost, then you’ve not fought the correct people. I don’t think there’s anyone undefeated that’s fighting top ranked guys and you’ve got to take that loss, learn from that loss and go on. If you can pick up on the mistakes that you made and learn from those mistakes, then you’re gonna be a better fighter. I have five losses on my record and I try to learn from every loss. These guys need to do the same thing.

Matt Serra made a good choice this week and it was a good fight selection on his part. Come next week, I’ve got to do the same thing.