Josh Koscheck has been on the shelf for just over 9 months now. If the UFC was a grocery store and the fighters were food, then Kos’ shelf time would have to indicate he was something meaty and filled with lots of preservatives to retain freshness. He’d be like the potted meat or vienna sausages of the UFC store. Doesn’t sound all that appealing but when you think about it, at least he has a nice comfy spot on the shelf next to Gina Carano (right now she’s the canned gourmet albacore tuna). That’s some pretty tasty shelf company.
Kos is waving goodbye to the canned goods shelf now and getting shipped back over to the fresh meat case in two weeks to face Matt Hughes. He pushed to take the injured Diego Sanchez’s spot via his Twitter account a little over a week ago and got what he was looking for–a fight with Matt Hughes. Kos blogged on sportsnet.ca about why he wanted the Matt Hughes fight to reacquaint himself with the octagon and the fans.
“I’ll tell you exactly why I went out there on Twitter to try to force Matt Hughes into a corner and accept this fight with me at UFC 135 next Saturday. Here’s what is up: Matt Hughes used to be one of the best. Used to be. Right now he’s nowhere near even one of the best in the world. Where is he ranked? Probably not in a lot people’s top 10.
But he’s still got that name and is a two-time champion, and beating a name like that in my comeback fight means something.
That’s the funny thing. I was prepared to fight middleweights like Chris Leben or even a light heavyweight like Rich Franklin (as long as we met at middleweight) because I know I need a big name to come back to fight.
Instead, I got lucky to get Hughes, a guy who cannot beat my style and he knows it. He can’t strike with me and he can’t use his wrestling against me like he could some of the guys he’s been beating.
That’s my thinking, I’ve been out for a long while. I need a big fight, a big name and I know I can look devastating again against Hughes and it will be a highlight of the night. It will be a tough fight, a battle and it will be exciting with the styles mixing together. It is exactly what I need right now and exactly what he doesn’t need right now.
There’s no real issue with me and Hughes. It is just he said it numerous times he didn’t want to fight any of us from AKA, my train team, and it is long overdue he fights one of us.
Now I am going put Matt Hughes in his place. When he was on top, he wouldn’t give any of us “kids” our shot at him. He never manned up. Now he’s been forced to fight me and this is going to be so much fun.”
Sounds a bit like Kos is hoping to grind Matt Hughes up into a meaty paste and send him over to hang out on the shelf with Gina for awhile. Break out the saltines and get ready. Just ten more days till UFC 135 and we all get a taste of Kos throwing his meat around in the octagon once again.[source]
