Matt Hughes scored a huge win over one of the greatest grapplers of all time in Royce Gracie when they clashed in a record-setting fight at UFC 60.
Matt Hughes is widely regarded as one of the greatest UFC welterweights of all time, and throughout his incredible UFC tenure, he was involved in some of the craziest fights in the promotion’s history.
One of which came against Frank Trigg at UFC 52 in what was a rematch of their UFC 45 fight, and after Hughes scored a first-round submission win, UFC boss Dana White admitted it’s his favorite UFC fight of all time.
Not long after his huge win over Trigg, Hughes was matched up against arguably the greatest grappler of all time in Royce Gracie.
Matt Hughes dominated Royce Gracie in record-setting UFC clash
After beating Georges St-Pierre to become the UFC welterweight champion, Hughes successfully defended against Trigg and then beat Joe Riggs in a non-title bout.
He was then matched up against the returning Gracie at UFC 60 on May 27, 2006, again in a non-title bout, despite still being the UFC welterweight champion.
Despite being primarily known for his dominant wrestling, early in the fight, Hughes showcased his grappling against the Brazilian, who will always be known as one of the greatest grapplers ever.
The American caught Gracie in a straight armbar and attempted to submit the Brazilian, but quickly transitioned to the crucifix position where he rained down some hellacious ground-and-pound.
He then rapidly transitioned to the back of Gracie and subsequently flattened him out and began to butcher him from the top position. After some extremely heavy ground-and-pound, the referee jumped in and stopped the fight.
On commentary, UFC icon Joe Rogan was left speechless, just continuously exclaiming ‘wow’, as were some famous celebrities in the crowd, including Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, Paul Walker, and Paris Hilton, amongst others.
UFC 60 set new promotional records with huge PPV sales
Not only was the event attended by some of the biggest celebrities in the world, but it was also viewed worldwide by hundreds of thousands of fans, breaking promotional records.
The event drew in excess of 620,000 PPV buys, becoming the best-selling PPV in UFC history, at the time, and was the first UFC event to break the $20 million mark in gross PPV sales.
Just four months later, Hughes went on to defend his title against BJ Penn at UFC 63, scoring another big finish.