THE CANADIAN PRESS
Former champion Matt Hughes will be watching UFC 83 from his home in Hillsboro, Ill., on Saturday. And he will be "kind of rooting" for Georges St. Pierre to beat Matt Serra.
"If GSP wins and Matt Serra loses, I've already asked the UFC if I could fight Serra," Hughes told The Canadian Press. "I just think him and I have some unfinished business so to speak with the reality show ("The Ultimate Fighter"). That's what I've asked for and kind of hoping for.
"But either way you know I'm not done fighting. And if Serra happens to pull out a victory, then I'll just go and I'll find somebody else to fight. I don't know who it'd right now, but we'll just see."
Hughes and Serra were pitted against each other on Season 6 of "The Ultimate Fighter," a TV show that revels in sparks between the two coaches. Serra took care of that, taking pleasure in needling Hughes throughout the series.
The two were supposed to fight in December at UFC 79, but Serra was sidelined by two herniated discs. St. Pierre stepped in for Serra, defeating Hughes for the second time in three meetings. After the mixed martial arts bout, Hughes said he had to think about his future, noting "I'm not going to come out here and be someone's highlight reel."
While he has since committed himself to keep fighting, he does not expect to get a shot at the winner Saturday night.
"The welterweight division is very tough right now and there's been a lot of guys kind of waiting to get that title shot. So I don't think I'll fight the winner, to be honest," he said. "This is not coming from the UFC, this is just coming from a guy that's been in the UFC for what seems like forever now. I just think they've got to give the title shot to somebody else. Maybe (Jon) Fitch or somebody like that."
While the 34-year-old Hughes has asked to fight Serra, there are other possible opponents in the welterweight ranks. Hughes points to Thiago Alves, a fighter he sees moving up the 170-pound ladder.
"If Thiago would be able to knock me off, then he'd definitely be ready for a title shot," said Hughes, considered a future Hall of Famer given his dominance as champion. "But he's somewhat unchallenged as well, because Spencer Fisher, I think, beat him early in his UFC days."
The 24-year-old Alves has a record of 18-4 and is coming off his fifth straight UFC win, an impressive TKO over Karo Parisyan earlier this month. That raised his overall record in the UFC to 7-2, with the losses coming to Fitch and Fisher.
Hughes (43-6 including 15-4 in the UFC) expects St. Pierre to reclaim his title Saturday, although he admits his handicapping is only right about half the time.
"To be honest I really think it's going to be one-sided... . GSP's been looking like he's really been concentrating on his ground game, taking people down," he said. "I don't know what he's going to do against Serra but I still think Serra's weakest on his feet. He's obviously a black belt and he's going to be surely concentrating on working on his back because one thing I don't think's going to happen is I don't think Serra's going to take GSP down.
"But obviously Serra's got some power in his hands and maybe Georges is a little leery of standing up with him and will just take him right down. But there's so many variables, I don't known what's going to happen. But I just think Georges will not underestimate and I think he'll end up being victorious."
The decision not to come to Montreal to watch the fight ringside was his wife's, Hughes said.
"I get a lot of support from Canada, that's evident from my website," he said. "But I've got a 20-month-old daughter and I really just am going to stay home. I'm going to watch the fight with my family at home. I asked my wife if she wanted to go up there. She said no and when she said no, I decided to just stay with the family as well."
While the focus is on Serra-St. Pierre this week, Hughes said the TV show has set the stage for his showdown with Serra. On a recent book tour to promote his autobiography "Made in America," Hughes said fans were talking up the fight.
"I started off the book in New York and Long Island area and if I had a nickel for every time somebody said `hey you can't retire until you beat Matt Serra,' I'd be a rich man right now," he said. "Even out there where I would have thought I was in Serra territory, I had a lot of support and he didn't have a lot of support. I was really surprised."
Hughes said wife Audra can't wait for the fight to happen.
"My wife wants me to fight Matt Serra just as much as I do," he said. "What she says is when I fight Serra, she wants blood. And my wife knows I can do it. So that's probably what's going to happen. I'm going to go in there with an angry attitude and like I fought Frank Trigg the second time, when I ended up getting on top of him I was pretty happy when he rolled back to me and was face to face with me and I got to punch him a few more times.
"And then I choked him out."
