We've seen one bully confronted, back down this month and now a fun situation is developing between Matt Hughes and the fellas at American Kickboxing Academy in San Jose. Does it mean another "retirement" on the way? Probably not. It's doubtful that Hughes will walk away from the sport like Quinton Jackson did because he's getting beating up verbally, but the former welterweight champ needs to save face and challenge one of the three AKA fighters who are calling him out. Josh Koscheck, Jon Fitch and Mike Swick are legit top 10 UFC welterweights and it's getting to the point where they're laughing at Hughes (pictured choking an overzealous fan).
Swick told Cage Potato, AKA will keep calling out Hughes because they know he'll never step up to fight:
"We knew he wasn’t going to take the fight before we called him out. We -- me and Fitch -- actually told Koscheck to do that," Swick said talking about Koscheck's postfight challenge at UFC 103. "Fitch has asked for him before and then I asked for him and the UFC told me I wasn’t going to get that fight. So before Koscheck’s fight we were talking and we just said, ‘Hey, why don’t you try it and see if he’ll fight you."
Swick said the AKA guys are just toying with Hughes:
"There’s no real motivation anymore to fight him. We know he’s not going to agree to it. It’s just a game now. He won’t take a fight with any of us and we’re just going to keep continuously calling him out."
It's actually kind of sad to see Hughes, who for years was the bully on the block, back down to the AKA guys. His only comments about Koscheck's challenge were to say he didn't know why the AKA fighter was calling him out:
"I find Koscheck calling me out kind of interesting and I actually don’t know why he is doing that. I was used to kids doing this when I was the champ, but as you know I don’t have the belt now and I’m puzzled as to why Koscheck wants to fight me and not the champion in the weight class. I have no interest in fighting Koscheck and, as he was showing everybody, he’s just a kid."
Pulling out the kid card on a 30 year old? That's it? I miss the days when Hughes would verbally undress Frank Trigg, Georges St. Pierre or a poor newbie on The Ultimate Fighter.
Source:Yahoo Sports
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