UFC Hall of Famer Matt Hughes has confirmed something most of us have likely suspected for years.
“I would love to come back,” the former longtime UFC welterweight champion said on Monday’s edition of The MMA Hour. “I didn’t want to retire in the first place.”
Hughes, whose run of 19 wins in 20 fights from 2001-06 made him one of the first truly dominant stars of the UFC’s Zuffa era, retired to a front-office job after back-to-back, first-round knockout losses in 2010-11. And now that he’s no longer getting a paycheck to stay out of the ring -- Hughes was one of several former fighters-turned-office employees let go in a round of WME-IMG layoffs late last year -- he’s willing to say that he didn’t really want to quit .