Made in America: The Most Dominant Champion in UFC History

First, let's deal with the hype of the book's immodest subtitle. "The Most Champion in UFC History"?? Uh .... well, there is a guy named Randy Couture and his following who may have something it to say about that. When their respective careers have ended, there is little doubt that - as great as Matt Hughes was - Couture's legacy will overshadow that of the dude from Hillsboro.At his peak, Matt Hughes was a "monster," in the best MMA sense of the word - a one-man wrecking crew who elevated the "ground and pound" to an art form. He was scary strong and could submit opponents with punches, arm-bars or chokes. Choose your poison."Made in America", which begins rather abruptly and with little context, is not altogether a flattering portrait. For example, the dude needs some anger management lessons. So his Dad used to come home in a grouchy mood. So Matt and his brother gang up to beat up the old man. Matt's twin brother was 90 minutes late picking him up, so Matt punches him in the face. At his brother's wedding reception, some local boys try to pick up some girls so Hughes and his brother take off to try to beat the #$%$ out of them.Start to see a familiar pattern here?Other unflattering aspects to Hughes are self-revealed. For example, Hughes treats Tim Sylvia like dirt when the latter arrives at the Miletich Fighting Systems gym in Bettendorf, IA. Even when Sylvia reaches out to Hughes and tries to mend fences, Hughes blows him off. Later, though, when Hughes is committed to a publicity appearance on the very day his wife is having a C-section, who does he call to bail his butt out? Tim Sylvia!One chapter briefly covers Hughes' religious conversion to Christianity while on a mission at a Mexican orphanage. Later, in the second fight against Penn, Hughes calls on strength from Christ during the fight and comes back to win (ironically, catching and pounding Penn in a hold known as "the crucifix," a bit of irony that I would not have otherwise noticed).The autobiography is still going to be an interesting read for MMA fans. Hughes' ascension roughly paralleled the rise of MMA and the UFC from that of a fringe sport to a multi-million dollar mainstream athletic event that is covered by the likes of ESPN and Sports Illustrated. The inside perspectives from the Frank Trigg battles, the Royce Gracie "fight," B.J. Penn 1.0 and 2.0 and the first two fights against George St. Pierre are interesting."Made in America" comes out as Hughes - now well into his 30's - is clearly in the twilight of his MMA career. He said as much on the last series of TUF when he mused aloud about having only a few more fights left. He was totally dominated by GSP and tapped out in their third fight in late December 2007. One can only hope that we will still see Hughes vs. Matt Serra before retirement looms, as there is genuine bad blood between the two.Despite his waning skills and the rise of other fighters at 170 who clearly eclipse Hughes, he has rightly earned his place in the pantheon of UFC and MMA greats.No one will mistake Matt Hughes for Ernest Hemmingway. (On the other hand, I doubt that Hemingway was any good at a flying rear naked choke, a la the kind Hughes whipped on Frank Trigg.) I confess to being a big Matt Hughes fan. This book tells you more about the guy, warts and all. It is not a work of great literature and doesn't aspire to be. For the MMA fan and enthusiast, it is a quick and still entertaining read.

There are 3 ways to judge this book. 1. as an autobiography 2. as a UFC/MMA/Matt hughes fan and 3. as a well written, interesting story.This book comes up short on all 3 counts. Its a terrible autobigraphy. After i finished the book, I didnt get the feeling that i understood or knew Matt hughes. Sure, I knew more facts about matt hughes, but nothing on how he became who he is today, just facts. as a UFC/MMA/ Matt Hughes the fighter fan, its not real informative. He doesnt put any timeline on anything. I could never figure out where we are in his life. is it the next month, day, year what? Does he give any in depth thoughts or feelings into MMA? not really. Any behind the scenes stuff? limited.nothing of substance. he hardly even talks about his relationships with other fighter, or who is fighting with him. At one point he says he fought Tito. Tito Ortiz? yes. but does he ever tell us Tito ortiz? no. He just says tito. and you didnt even know Tito was atthe tournament until he says that he fought "Tito.". lazy. also, matt hughes come off pretty poorly in this book as a man. i had to double check to see if this was an autobigraphy or an unauthorised biography because he just came off as a selfish, meanspirited arrogant, judgemental, a little dilusional, bully. I dont care he doesnt have a relationship with his illigitamate son. Its a tough situation only he truley understands. I care he is not humble enough to acknowledge life is messy and people make mistakes, much like he has, when he makes blanket judgements on people (Especially Randy). finally this book is poorly written. paragraph after paragrah of directionless stories. I found myself rereading things thinking i missed something, or waiting in vain for a point to a story, some sort of epiphany or turning point that helped sculplt matt hughes the man. nothing. maybe some stuff got edited out because the book just had no flow, ryme or reason. I found myself getting frusterated as a read trying to undertsnad the point of a story, only to accept there wasnt one. BUT I didn't hate the book because there aren't enough MMA fighter books out there yet. The lidell book is much much better and mor einformative, but after you read that ther eis nothing to fill the void so you have to read this and just gut through it, just for another perspective as limited as it was. because of this, I am still glad I read it. I just wish it was more of what it could have been. I'msure Matt's life was very interesting, too bad he isn't. oh well.

I was not a fan of Matt Hughes and LOVED seeing him get the snot beat out of him by GSP. I recently heard him on a couple radio shows while he was promoting his book and he seemed like a good enough guy, I decided it wouldn't bother me too much to have a guy I previously hated make money from me, so I bought the book.The book gives some pretty good background on his upbringing and his relationship with his brother. I think the majority of the book revolves around that. There is some good background info about the UFC and some fighters but not enough to make me go WOW.I thought overall the book was OK, but it seemed to jump around a lot and there were times I wasn't sure who or what he was talking about due to the writing style.The writing was definitely unimpressive and it appeared as if maybe a junior high schooler wrote it.I marginally recommend it if you are a MMA junkie and want to learn as much as you can about the fighters.

Matt Hughes has been one of the most dominate champions the UFC has ever known. This book is essentially his life's story, and how a man went from a small rural town to the big lights of the UFC.The book is honest and revealing: Everything from street fights to his conversion to Christianity, to his near death experience at the swirl pool to his long up and downs with his current wife. The book does a great job of capturing Hughes' voice and personality.I found this book to be more entertaining than  Iceman: My Fighting Life  (although I would never say that to Liddell's face). Nevertheless, both were great reads and provide extraordinary behind-the-door information about the fastest growing sport in the country.

Pretty poorly written and the author is lacking humility or empathy, read GSP’s or Bisping’s book for a much more informative overview of MMA

I have been a Matt Hughes fan since the Brawl at the (Royal Albert) Hall, I saw him fight, reverse and finally ground and pound Carlos Newton into submission.I found some of this book interesting, all the parts about fighting were really well done, the part that did not come across as all well was Matt Hughes the person. He does come across as a bully at best at worst an ego manic that he has been accused of recently. Then again the UFC does not stand for the Ultimate Friends Championship; Matt is in his prime when he is talking about fighting, and his many victories. Unquestionably Matt is going to be remembered as one of the greatest welterweight fighter of all time, not for his sense of humour. I got a really mean spirited vibe from his sense of humour. All credit to Matt he did not lie or try and make himself look like something he is not.It was interesting to get into Matt's head especially the second BJ Penn fight, from the books version Matt started the fight with a healthy respect for Penn's abilities, but the way he describes the fight it's self matt seemed to think he was dominating the fight from start to finish, if you actually watch the fight, it looked the other way around, which Matt admitted in the post fight interview "I knew I lost the first 2 rounds so I knew I have to win the next 3".The one thing about this book is Matt's honestly, his attitude is this is what I think and this is what I am going to do I really don't care how that sounds like to anybody else and as you will find that gets him into trouble and on the bad side of more then one person, he wrote the book the same way. This allows the reader to make their own judgement of Matt Hughes good or bad guy. All in all top fighter.

Great read, binding fell apart though.