As he told us numerous times both before and after his recent fight with Georges St-Pierre, Matt Hughes has a new book out. Titled “Made in America,” Hughes provides several stories about his life in mixed martial arts. One such story was recently chronicled in an excerpt printed by The Sun in the UK. It read:

“Tim Sylvia walked over to me during practice. His back was hunched a bit, like Pat’s is, but Pat I could look in the face.

‘Can I talk to you a second?’ he asked.

“Sure thing.” He led me into an office and we sat down on two chairs.

“No one here’s got a problem with me except you,” he began.

“When I first started, Jens would say I’m a fat piece of s*** who’s never going to amount to anything, and he’d get me crying, but now even Jens likes me. Is there a problem?”

He was waiting for me to tell him there was a big misunderstanding or to apologise, like I wasn’t aware of what I was doing.

“Yeah, I really don’t like you,” I told him.

“Is there a reason why?”

“I don’t think you’re a team player and I don’t think you work very hard,” I said.

“How am I not a team player?”

“Remember that whole thing with that girl?” I reminded him.

He waved those ridiculously long arms of his in the air. “They weren’t even going out!”

“Yeah, but you knew that your teammate had a thing for her and you went for it anyway. But I don’t even care about that. I’m talking more about training.

“When somebody’s got a fight coming up, everybody tries to make sure the guy’s got some training partners to get ready.

“Everybody tries but you. Your first priority is always Tim, and I don’t think that’s a good attitude.”

I wasn’t angry or even annoyed. I had as much emotion as if I were talking about the contents of a fridge.

“I don’t think you work very hard either. You’re a little sore and you don’t come in.

“Jens, who’s a champion, has been sore and he comes in. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been sore.

“No one’s ever going to be 100 percent. You just suck it up and you do it, period.”

I didn’t care one way or another what he said in response - I assumed he’d get defensive or angry.

But he didn’t; he was reasonable.

“I’m actually hurt to hear you say that. I’ve been a huge fan of yours for a long time and I’ve been trying to model myself on some of your work ethics, and the way Jens works out and stuff like that, and it’s too bad you feel like this.

“There’s nothing more that I want than to be accepted by you and the rest of the guys.”

“You don’t become accepted by buying yourself a ticket to Vegas, following us around while we’re there when no one really invited you, and then crying - again - when Jens calls you out on it.”

“Is there anything I can do to be friends with you?”

“Well, right now I have enough friends and I don’t need any more friends,” I said. “Is that it? Are we done here?”

He let out a deep breath. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Good.” I got up and left.

One would think that Sylvia, a long time training partner of Matt Hughes would be quite upset. Sylvia has publicly supported and defended the former welterweight champion through the years, often when others would not.

But Sylvia says he’s not mad at Hughes. In an interview with Mr. Sunshine, which took place shortly before UFC 79, The Maine-iac said that the conversation took place about seven years ago and that “Matt Hughes is one of my best friends.”

“I don’t recall it being that harsh,” says Sylvia but added that Hughes called him after he won the heavyweight title the first time and said he was wrong and that Tim made a believer out of him. Hughes apologized.
Sylvia claims that Hughes lives with him when he stays in Iowa and credits him with helping Sylvia become a born-again Christian. “I still love him.”

Hughes recently left Miletich Fighting Systems, where he trained for many years to start his own gym. When asked about the reactions to the book of some other fighters at MFS, Sylvia offered, “Matt might be lost a little bit. There are people that are pissed off at the gym, absolutely.”

Taking his support for Matt Hughes to another level, Sylvia appears to dislike anyone that makes disparaging remarks about his “brother”.  He stated that he does not like Matt Serra, with whom Hughes has had a war of words since they coached together on The Ultimate Fighter reality series.

If Hughes isn’t the champion, he would like St-Pierre to be the champion.  “Anyone but Serra,” says Sylvia.  “Matt Serra is a puke.”