Thomas Hughes vs Rui Medina

Thomas Hughes coming out right now. He is 25 years old. He stands at about 5'9". He weighed in at 155 pounds. I mean, I know this guy from up there when he did MMA. He is a tremendous striker. Right now, he's never tasted defeat so far in the ring or the cage. He's 2-0 in MMA. He's 4-0 in Muay Thai. This guy has a lot going for him. I know they've invited him to try out for the Olympic kickboxing team. So, we haven't seen him physically in a while. That kind of shows his striking potential right there. Like I mentioned, his coaches are Aldo Reggie and Jerry Kelton. And Lucas Montt is with him. So, he kind of gets a big group of people here. We've got Lucas and them. They're training around. We've got Blackout Jiu-Jitsu, Blackout MMA. We've got Jerry Kelton. That's where half the guys are practicing Jiu-Jitsu. Then we have Aldo Reggie as well. So, as you can see, he's got a lot of people this morning. I know he started Muay Thai at the age of 13. And he's been training ever since. His last MMA fight, he won via triangle in the first 26 seconds. It tells us, you know, he's one of those guys that starts out as a striker, you know. And you would think would be one-dimensional. He comes out, wins via triangle. Early in, he's just fun to do. He's a successful business owner. So, he's working for that. Yeah, you know, we've got Bobby Wallmarker as the referee. He's going to get this thing started with. He's going to check some opponents. We come out. We'll see if they're going to touch gloves. Yes, they do. And let's get this started. Oh, man. And this is going to be Thomas' style. He likes to throw those heavy body kicks, heavy shots early in the fight. Let people know what they're dealing with, the power that he has. We've already got blood draining out of the nose of me already. Yeah, it's good. I think that's part of Thomas there. He's on the bottom right now. And, you know, doing a pretty good job. Stingler as well. You know, he took a couple shots there. Took a shot to the gut. You know, it's one of Thomas' favorite combos there, to tell you the truth. You know, being the Muay Thai striker that he is. You know, he loves those leg kicks. He loves things like that. You know, who knows giving these takedowns. Which, in the end, is probably going to go ahead and score some points for the judges. But I will tell you, there's blood dripping all over. It almost sprayed all the computers over here. And it is dripping out of his nose right now as he sits on top. You know, what I'm wondering is, and I've seen it happen in other fights. I've seen the guy sit above and drip that blood into his opponent's eyes. Oh, yeah. And the guy on the bottom is not even bleeding. Ends up dealing more with the blood than the guy who's bleeding himself. All of that stuff dumped right into the mouth. But it looks like he's got it underneath the chin. Let's see if Thomas can get through this or not. I mean, like I said, these other little guys are tough. And who's coming to fight? This is a good trick right here, too. You can tell he's spreading blood all over the face and the neck of Hughes. And that gives him a chance to slip those knuckles right under the chin of Thomas Hughes. And might even get a chunk right there. It's pretty slippery. You know, normally it takes a round or two to get the sweat going. But right now we've got blood going, and Thomas is flying down right now. This is a bad position for him. He needs to get those lids back underneath himself to try to keep the spooks away. He's got his arm deep in the neck. He looks like he's working to connect the arms now. But he's got a good head start on a choke already. Now he's starting to feed the arm through. And Thomas is starting to turn over. Maybe he's got to get up the mouth position to avoid this choke. You can see Thomas trying to stack to the front. But as soon as he stepped over, that guy ended up sinking a little bit more. And Thomas stepped up. Thomas did a good job of trying to get the right position. His arm is really starting to straighten out there. Which, I've had a blown bicep before, and that is a terrible position. You can see Thomas right now, he's still going for that finish. These guys are putting on a great fight. He's going for that takedown, takedown, takedown, takedown, which is a great idea with the striker. He's trying to test Thomas' ground skills. Andy, our gauge cleaner is going to be working some motor science. Yes, he is. Good to see him put to work. Yes, he is. When we came out, he just gave the little hang loose sign to Thomas, letting him know he's all good. Doctor checked him out. These guys have given us a show. These guys are covered in blood. I love it. Show respect for each other, and then start whaling. Thomas threw some hands right now. Let's see what he does with his kicks. He's changing stances as well, so it's kind of hard to be able to figure out which way he's standing. He's caught that single kick again. He just kicked him twice in the stomach, and he's done, dude. Thomas Hughes feels in the cage. He's got a love you sign to his fans, and probably to his wife and his kids as well. Great fight, these guys. Great show of sportsmanship. Thomas goes to see him, makes sure he was okay. Some people don't understand this, but they don't always want to hurt their opponent, but they do want to win. Sometimes that's what everyone wants. They want to share that war with their opponent. You want to share a war with them in that cage, and you want to make that crowd scream their guts out. This is a great day, you can kind of see. Everyone's happy right now. The U.S. Games.