I think the one-dimensional aspect is much more appropriate for Hughes than Liddell. Everyone talks about how Chuck has a great wrestling background, and looking at old tapes, I’ve seen him shoot for takedowns and utilize leg kicks effectively. As an old kickboxer, he should also be much better a checking leg kicks than he is; it’s like it just doesn’t occur to him. He hasn’t even attempted any of these things in a long time, at least not as a serious part of his game plan. You don’t just forget how to do these things; for some reason – likely his training partners and coaches not pushing him to do them in practice or designing game plans around them – he has just stopped. Training is where you develop the reactions that become second nature by the time you fight. When a fighter has the skills to win – and we’ve seen them demonstrated in the past – but just doesn’t use them, that’s definitely a training problem.

Hughes, on the other hand, you’re right: he never developed any kind of effective stand up game, and his submissions, while adequate, aren’t on the level of the top jiu jitsu guys, and certainly aren’t enough to catch the newer breed of fighter for whom training submission defence is practicaly job 1. His physical attributes are still there, though; the guy is still freakishly strong, can take a beating, and has decent speed especially on his shot. But he just isn’t doing anything to compliment those attributes.

BJ… who the hell knows? BJ is a unique creature and I don’t think anyone, including his camp, really gets how he ticks.

Hughes is a good wrestler and submissions guy (ask Royce Gracie) and Chuck is a good striker and wrestler.
Both have worked on the third aspect quite a bit, but both are on the trail end of their physical primes.

Fedor’s partners may be mediocre, but his programming and adamantium infused skeleton are cutting edge.

With respect to Wandy, I shake my head when I see him doing all the crazy conditioning exercises considering his last two fights have lasted a combined 2 minutes or so. Fact is, Wandy should be doing less running with a snorkel taped to his face, and more practice on how to throw a jab and a straight right.

A better summation would be that the welterweight division has passed him by. He is still is a dominant light-weight and will continue to beat everyone in that class. His work there in that class cannot be disputed.

Fedor’s trainer readily admitted after the fight that he didn’t train properly, and how much did it hurt him? It took him all of 3 minutes to put Arlovski to sleep. Fedor could probably live at Disney World for a month leading upto a fight and still win in the first round.

I don’t know about that; say what you will about the weight cutting debacle (and I’ll never forgive him for that), but Alves dominated Hughes in every single way. Heck, I’m not sure I’d take Hughes over McLovin’. His jits are so slick that combined with his length, a fight on the ground would be a bad prospect for Hughes, and Hughes still has no standup.

That’s not really fair. Gruden won with a team that had not previously won under a different coach.

uh, and in the superbowl he was playing against the team he’d coached the year before. i mean, it was called the chucky bowl for a reason….