Serra vs. Hughes: Is it Still Relevant?

When Serra was a title holder, this was a fight I would watch to see who Georges was taking the belt from.

With UFC 98 only a few weeks away, there’s an important question I have to ask myself about the co-main event bout between two former UFC welterweight champions named Matt.

Why should I care?

It won’t be hard for my brother, a long time Matt Hughes fan, to find a reason to sit on the edge of his seat. It won’t be hard for the New Yorkers who back Matt Serra to hit the sports bar and watch the hometown hero prepare for war against an inevitable UFC hall-of-famer.

But as someone who doesn’t like Hughes or Serra, I find that I have to have another reason to care. I mean, I’ll watch the card, because the main card as a whole is going to be very good (Sherk vs. Edgar, Foupa Pokam vs. McFedries and Miller vs. Sonnen are going to be exciting, and the title fight is interesting enough, though not mindblowing). Still, with a co-main event bout like this one, that would have been a huge deal ten UFC’s ago after the close of their season of the Ultimate Fighter, but with Hughes’ destruction at the hands of Thiago Alves and pair of losses to Georges St. Pierre, as well as Matt Serra’s more than year long hiatus, it’s hard to look at this fight and see an immediate impact on the 170 pound division worthy of a co-main event fight.

The argument, of course, is that this fight isn’t supposed to have an impact on the division. It’s supposed to give fans who wanted closure on this rivalry some closure. That’s fair, but that’s not a reason for me to care. The rivalry is not really on my radar anymore, except when it provides me a good laugh.

The truth is, I don’t see relevance in a fight between Hughes and Serra. It may end up being an interesting grappling match between a wrestler and a solid jiu-jitsu blackbelt, but since Serra is hardly the level of jiu-jitsu competitor its taken to get me excited lately (see Demian Maia and Xande Ribeiro) and Matt Hughes really seems to be winding down his career as a top tier competitor in the sport (and, perhaps, as a competitor in general) I find myself wondering if people really believe that either of these two guys can be title contenders again.

Of course, both of these guys think they can.

Serra would love a rubber match with Georges, and he’s the only one I see getting a shot at the title, should Georges successfully defend his belt against Thiago Alves at UFC 100.

Hughes, on the other hand, may be Thiago’s biggest fan right now, as what Hughes needs to do to even be considered for a shot is win this bout and then pray (and he will) that Thiago Alves puts GSP through the canvas.

I can very well see a Georges St. Pierre vs. Matt Serra III and a Thiago Alves vs. Matt Hughes II in the future. One might be for a title, one might not. But since I can’t, having a reasonable understanding of these two matchups, say that I see Hughes and Serra winning either of those bouts.

So what does this fight offer, besides giving one of these fighters a win going into what may be a final story in their respective legacies?

Not a whole helluva lot.

It gives us an opportunity to see some veteran competitors showcasing skillsets that never really changed. This is a bout that is no different now, in my opinion, then it would have been ten UFCs ago, or even 20 (if, say, Matt Hughes had been the title holder when Serra appeared at UFC 69). Both fighters are very much the same competitors they were then.

But, like many of these nostalgic matchups, it’s only justifier is that people want to see it. That’s fine. That justification explains the existence of the matchup, and so everyone out there will acknowledge that this is a fight the regular viewers of TUF 6 want. It’s, simply, not a matchup for the rest of us. Anyway, I should enjoy Evans vs. Machida. At least the UFC lightheavyweight title is something I care about.