The Ultimate Fighting Championship continues to roll out episodes of its hit documentary series “UFC 25 Years in Short.” The series — which received a Sports Emmy Award nomination in the “Outstanding Edited Sports Special or Series” category — first premiered in 2018.
In recent weeks, however, the promotion has been releasing the videos to the official UFC YouTube account.
The latest video to be released is titled “Country Boy Can Survive: The Story of Matt Hughes’ Fight for Survival.” The video follows the UFC Hall of Famer’s road to recovery after he was involved in a severe single-car accident when his truck was struck by a train.
“I like doing more heartfelt stories,” Rory Karpf, director of “A Country Boy Can Survive,” said in a statement. “That’s what I gravitate towards and I like touching people’s emotions. I started at NFL Films, that was my first job out of college, and Steve Sabol wanted everything we did to touch, move and inspire. That’s football, there’s a lot of emotion in that game, and I really worshipped at his altar as a storyteller. So if I had to choose, I know that there are other topics in the series that are very interesting, but I did want to do more of the deeper, emotional stories.”
After the accident, Hughes was not expected to live. However, he was able to dig deep and use his championship spirit to make a miraculous recovery. The documentary features Hughes’ family and shows the highs and the lows of his journey back to full health.
“I don’t want to just do these sugary, sweet, saccharine pieces,” Karpf said. “Luckily for the Matt Hughes film, UFC didn’t put any restrictions on me. They just said tell the story that you want, and that’s what I did. Most human beings are not black and white. Most are shades of gray.
You can watch the full video below.
Matt Hughes was a dominant UFC champion, but after his hall of fame career came to a close, he faced his toughest fight ever, this time, for his very survival.
