Royce.... Vs.. Hughes

[link=http://www.ufc.tv/index.cfm?fa=news.detail&gid=2098]UFC[/link]

anyone thoughts on this?

I've personally not been following Royce for quite a while now.

What's your thoughts?

:-|

http://www.mma.tv/tuf/index.cfm?ac=ListMessages&PID=1&TID=736261&FID=1&pc=174

Im a Royce fan always will be from the first time i seen him in UFC1 when i was a teen.

I want him to win bad....... plain and simple...:-D

He's prob the reason most of us first set foot on the mat.

As much as I'd like to see a brazillian jiujitsu specialist doing well in the UFC, I'd not like to call this one. Looking at the statistics, the majority of the old school fighter's comebacks have been an embarassing wake up call. I've not been following Royce since his UFC days, but I have been following the UFC. How is Royce going to handle not having a gi, and all modern fighters being well versed on the ground? Watching his fight with Kimo, he struggled, eventually won, but was unable to continue. During the fight, Kimo only showed a basic knowledge of ground defences and sweeps, but was able to exhaust Royce.
Matt Hughes had defended a champion's belt so many times for a very good reason, and defeated George St. Pierre with an armbar counter to an americana that showed how much he has been training in submissions over the years. Unless Royce's physical attributes have dramatically changed since his UFC days, he will have no hope of matching Matt Hughes' power. I'm sure we won't see any of Matt Hughes' body slams due to Royce sitting down to counter his pickups, but I'm not sure Royce can handle Hughes power and ability to control on the ground, or if he has the conditioning to fight at Hughes' pace.
On the whole, I'd like to see Royce and some beautiful BJJ to return to the UFC, but I won't be surprised if he had as hard a time as Ken Shamrock had against Tito. I hope he lasts longer than Tank did in his forty something second 'comeback' against Frank Mir.

Although, having said all that, Royce did always favour chokes. Matt Hughes lost his belt to BJ Penn. Penn went up a weight class by putting on flab, and caught the much stronger Hughes in a rear naked choke.

werent most of his early ufc's armbars?

Royce by RNC... 30 seconds into round one haha that'd be col

chokes

my memory must be fading...........

who do you think will win sweaty gi.

finally watched the royce nye fight... i dont think he done to bad.. but then didn't know too much about his opponent but he seemed ok.... although correct me if im wrong (i prob am) but a few times looked like royce could kimura / armbar from guard... why didn't he ? ? or at least try for the sub... was also surprised when he got his back he never sunk the rnc.. ;-)

Would be nice to see royce win but I can't see it happening.

I'm not sure what fight you're talking about Si, but the UFC fights I've seen, he always had a very definate game plan. He often didn't take the opportunity for arm locks, opting to continue to improve position until he could secure a choke. Maybe due to there being less chance of the opponent countering his submissions. Alot of people make the mistake of jumping at a submission and end up losing their position. Perhaps Royce thought that in the earlier rules free UFC it was too high a risk to lose a dominant position.
Matt Hughes is a lot to take on, but he still makes mistakes, and Royce has far more experience. They wouldn't have put the fight on if they didn't think it would be a close run thing.

sl is talking about royces last fight on new years eve.

spider i was talking about nye..... i think if it presents itself hell take it he arm barred kimo (front cover of his new book) a few others in early ufc's (can't remember the names) he prob prefers the choke who doesn't. I hope he does it.. and im really looking forward to it the ufc been a bit stale of late noone i really wanna see apart from BJ penn return and GSP.

But Royce returning is unreal......... but once again i hope he can do it....................;-) Im not too bothered if he loses by decision .... just dont wanna see him knocked out...

Like I said, I've not seen him lately. I think that favouring the choke and using his gi was part of an old game plan specifically for no holds barred fighting. I think he will be far more likely to look for an arm in his fight against Matt Hughes. I've not seen Matt Hughes have to cope with many leg locks, hopefully Royce will try for one of those as the opportunity is often there in a Hughes fight.
I doubt Royce will get knocked out, but his eye closed up really bad in his Ken Shamrock Superfight, and those hits were nothing compared to the punishment Matt gives out on the ground.
Lets just hope Matt Hughes has got the confidence to fight Royce on the ground, and Royce can stay calm amongst the onslaught.

Of course he'll stay calm, it's just gonna be interesting to see if, and how, the fight gets to the ground.

yea, Hughes said himself that he wants to keep it standing with Royce. But then again, Royce does have a blackbelt in karate and trains kickboxing, so hopefully he will get to display some of his standup before taking Hughes down, or maybe in the fulrry, hughes will resort to the takedown.

Lets hope the karate training doesn't hold him back