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@matthughes9x Retires: His Place in the UFC Record Book

Posted 5:36 PM
Matt Hughes announced his retirement from competition today, which is a good occasion to reflect on his place in the UFC record book:

Hughes retires with 18 UFC wins, the most in the organization's history. Of those 18 wins, 13 were finishes, the second-most finishes, behind Anderson Silva's 14 finishes. Hughes fought 25 times in the UFC, second only to Tito Ortiz's 27 appearances. He ends with a total fight time of 3:43:12, the 7th highest total in UFC history.

Hughes' combined championship reign at welterweight was 1,579 days. This ranks him 3rd behind Anderson Silva (2,295 days) and Georges St-Pierre (1,995 days), whose streaks are still active and counting. Hughes fought in 10 title fights, tied for second-most with GSP and finished eight of those fights, second only to Silva.

Of all of the significant strikes Hughes landed in his career, 57.8% of them came while on the ground. That is the highest proportion of ground strikes among any fighter with at least 350 attempts.

Hughes finishes with 42 career takedowns landed, tied for 10th all-time. Over his career, he landed a takedown against 19 different opponents. Only Tito Ortiz (22 opponents) and Randy Couture (20 opponents) had more.

And while the image of Hughes submitting Frank Trigg two times with a rear-naked choke is a lasting memory, those were the only two serious rear-naked choke attempts of Hughes' UFC career.

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