Serra Out, St. Pierre To Face Hughes At UFC 79
by Robert Sargent
UFC Welterweight Champion Matt Serra was forced to withdraw from his UFC 79 fight with Matt Hughes yesterday after suffering a herniated disc in his back during training. With Serra out for the foreseeable future, Georges St. Pierre announced today that he will battle Matt Hughes at UFC 79 in a rubber match to determine the UFC Interim Welterweight Champion.
Originally scheduled as a grudge match between Serra and Hughes, the newly-announced Interim title fight will now settle the score between rivals Hughes and St. Pierre, who each hold one title fight victory over the other.
Hughes won the first battle by submission with one second left in round one, while St. Pierre won the rematch by TKO (strikes) in the second round.
Hughes has recently stated that he feels that his career is coming to a close, and that he only has a few fights left in him. As such, he will undoubtedly take this fight very seriously, in hopes of regaining a winning record over the French Canadian, St. Pierre. The only other current UFC fighter to hold a victory over Hughes is BJ Penn, who is currently occupied in the lightweight division. A rubber match between Hughes and Penn also seems likely before Hughes calls it quits.
In the meantime, Hughes will have all he can handle in St. Pierre, who is looking to re-establish himself as the present and future of the UFC welterweight division, following his upset loss to Serra at UFC 69. Having recently defeated Josh Koscheck, St. Pierre is well on his way to becoming king of the division once again.
Hughes is coming off of a lacklustre performance in his victory over Chris Lytle, and will have to fight a much better fight against St. Pierre if he wants to come out the victor. With Hughes expecting to face Serra, rather than St. Pierre, up until yesterday, it remains to be seen what the late change of opponents will do. In St. Pierre's case, he did not expect to fight until the first quarter of 2008, so he will not have an easy time adjusting, either.
With Serra currently rumoured to be out of action until at least March or April of next year, the division will have to sort itself out in the meantime. Hughes and St. Pierre will battle for the Interim title, while other top contenders like Jon Fitch will likely have to secure one more victory before they get their just title shots.
Hughes vs St. Pierre III will take place on December 29th, 2007 at UFC 79. Other major fights on the card include the long-awaited superfight between "The Iceman" Chuck Liddell and "The Axe Murderer" Wanderlei Silva, and a light heavyweight contender battle between undefeated Ryoto "Lyoto" Machida and "The African Assassin" Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou, who is coming off of back-to-back first-round KO victories over top 205 fighters Ricardo Arona and Antonio Rogerio "Minotoro" Nogueira.
Even with the late substitution, UFC 79 still promises to be the best UFC card of the year.
