I sat down and watched TUF last night with my fiance and our roommate and we were all pretty equally appalled at Matt Hughes. His coaching methods as shown on the show are abusive and very unhelpful. His ego is so deeply tied to beating Matt Serra that he is neglecting his guys. He has unreasonable expectations for rookie fighters and blames them for everything. Matt Serra on the other hand has a very low pressure training environment that is also high intensity and very enthusiastic. Even after Serra's protege lost the first match to Danzig he sucked it up pretty well and just moved on. Yeah he told his fighter what the guy did wrong, freezing inside the triangle when he had an opportunity to escape, but he didn't ride him for it and he didn't punish the rest of the team over it.
I know that editing plays a big part in how we perceive the coaches on this show, but Matt Serra really comes off as the better COACH of the two, regardless of which is the better fighter. The same happened with BJ Penn and Jens Pulver. BJ is a GREAT coach for people who are already highly motivated and really on the same page as he is, but he's not so great for people who aren't as motivated or as capable as he is. Joe Lauzon seemed to benefit a TON from BJ while some of the other fighters didn't seem to improve at all. Jens Pulver was able to keep his whole team motivated and together the whole time and everyone seemed to be improving and learning. Now clearly BJ is a better fighter than Jens is. Jens is great, but BJ is in a whole nother world. But if I were able to pick one to be my coach it would probably be Jens because I know he has the patience to work with me that BJ lacks.
The ability of a coach to keep their teem cohesive and moving in the same direction is just as important as their ability to fight. Matt Serra has it, Matt Hughes doesn't.
NAGA is this Saturday, I'll be hitting up class tonight and then open mats tomorrow. I'm feeling a lot more comfortable escaping side control now and everything else about my game feels pretty tight. I really want to win my division at NAGA.
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