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Heavyweight Bout: Matt Hughes (wrestling) vs. Val Ignatov (sambo) |
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| Hughes is a Miletich protege, while Ignatov is with Bob Shamrock. This was one of the more one-sided fights. It still went the distance though. Hughes did perhaps the second most impressive looking takedown in this history of UFC behind Frank's KO of Zinoviev, but Ignatov landed well so it didn't do nearly as much damage as it looked like it would. Hughes could basically take Ignatov down anytime he wanted. Ignatov's biggest problem though is that sambo doesn't allow strikes. This meant his guard wasn't as advanced against ground and pound, which is about the only thing Hughes was going to do to him on the mat, as it was against submissions. Ignatov's defense looked good early on, but Hughes started to find his range after a couple of minutes. He was most successful when he went to the ribs to open up the big shots to the head. After standing up, Hughes landed some killer blows, but Ignatov was able to sustain them. Lack of heart certainly wasn't Ignatov's problem, doing any effective offense was. He nearly beat Hughes at the beginning of the second round with a guillotine choke after Hughes charged in, which was a near finish reminiscent of Ken Shamrock vs. Severn 1. Aside from that, he really didn't do anything though. Hughes took him down, and the rest of the round was Hughes throwing punches while he was in Ignatov's guard. This didn't hurt Ignatov much, but lead Hughes to another 10-9 round. Hughes scored with several strikes to start the third round. Ignatov tried to take him down with a doublearm salto, but Hughes avoided it and we were right back to Hughes on top in Ignatov's guard. Hughes knew he had the match one, so he didn't take many chances. He just stayed busy enough to win himself another 10-9 round, running the clock out in the process. Hughes won this via unanimous decision. The first round and the beginning of the second round were exciting, but the rest of the fight was just okay. You always felt that Ignatov might be able to win because he has to be good at submissions from his back to excel in sambo, but it was hard to get behind him when he was never able to do anything. Jason: A decent match with one style being more dominant than the other. Hughes was able to control Ignatov both on the mat and on his feet, so being a wrestler he took him down to the mat whenever he got chance. Hughes was just too strong for Ignatov to do anything with. Ignatov tried to control Hughes' arms from his guard, but couldn't get anything past him because Hughes was so powerful. Miko: Hughes was a bad opponent for Ignatov because he is a better wrestler with the strength to back it up. Igntatov is compared to Oleg Takatarov at times in that he's defense is poor but he's tough and has alot of heart. Tak was far better with submissions though. I'm guessing Taktarov was better with submissions, but Ignatov couldn't defend himself against the style he had to know his opponent would use. Outside of there being more chance of Ignatov getting lucky, it basically didn't matter how many submissions he did or didn't know. The only way Ignatov was going to win this match was if Hughes got frustrated and/or did something stupid. However, since Iganatov couldn't stop Hughes' takedowns or punches, leading to Hughes getting ahead on the scorecards, there was really no reason for Hughes to consider doing anything careless or even different than what was already working quite well. Special Thanks to: Jason Higgs & Miko Kubota - Michiku Pro 15:00 |
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