Maurice Smith is the latest inductee in the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Hall of Fame and Bas Rutten couldn’t be any more happy.
Rutten has a bit of a history with Smith. The two fought twice in 1995 under the professional mixed martial arts (MMA) promotion Pancrase. Rutten won both fights by submission.
Both men are former UFC heavyweight champions and are widely recognized as legends of combat sports. Rutten told MMAJunkie.com that Smith is a deserving inductee:
“He’s such a good guy. My memories from him – and this goes all the way back to 1993 – I remember him coming in with a computer, and he had boxes hooked on to his computer – you know, speakers. He was already online. I mean, in 1993, that was something completely new. Nobody knew that. So he was a very technical guy. It started with the strikers. That’s what we thought, and then we got beat by the ground fighters. Then it was the wrestlers, and suddenly they started learning how to defend the takedown. Then the strikers came back. It was a really weird wave of things that were going on. It was all with who you worked out. Do you want to improve? If you want to improve, then you’re going to have to work. … I love it. A big congratulations to him.”
