Bas Rutten: Maurice Smith's UFC Hall of Fame inclusion is 'freaking awesome'

This past weekend, UFC officials announced former heavyweight champion Maurice Smith will be inducted into the promotion’s hall of fame this summer, and there were some mixed reactions among fans. Not so much with fellow UFC pioneer Bas Rutten, though.

“We started right from the beginning, so it’s a freaking awesome thing to see a guy like him getting inducted,” Rutten recently told MMAjunkie Radio.

Rutten (28-4-1 MMA, 2-0 UFC) actually owns a pair of wins over Smith (12-14 MMA, 4-3 UFC) while the two were competing under the Pancrase banner. But Rutten said he was a fan of Smith even before those times, when the fellow striker was succeeding in standup sports.

“This is a guy who fought for a long time,” Rutten said of Smith. “I saw him fight Thai boxing against Peter Aerts and all these other Dutch guys in Holland. He was the first Thai boxer from America who also did well overseas against other guys. You had a few more, but there were not many. Don Wilson, that was a really good one, but then Maurice Smith was right there in that same line. For a guy to do that at his age also – he’s older than me – and then start (in MMA), I think it is just because he was already a world champion in Thai boxing. He knows what to work for, and what happens is you realize, ‘OK, I have to learn this game.’ He started learning the game.

“He started putting himself in contact with guys like Matt Hume. This is just making yourself better. When somebody does that, yeah, the path is going to be paved out for them, and boom, suddenly he’s a world champion.”

While Rutten, 52, has followed his fighting career by becoming a noted commentator, 55-year-old Smith has enjoyed less of the spotlight than his fellow former champ. New fans of the sport have likely never seen an interview with “Mo,” but Rutten says he’s both a pleasant and intelligent individual.

“He’s such a good guy,” Rutten said. “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.”

Smith struggled with the ground game early in his career but quickly partnered with trainers such as Hume and Frank Shamrock to help shore up his deficiencies. Once he learned how to conduct himself on the ground – not to panic while searching for a way out – he was able to put his striking gifts on full display.

“It started with the strikers,” Rutten said. “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.”

Smith worked, and it paid off. In addition to his striking prowess, Williams also showed incredibly cardio and battled legendary ground-and-pound master Mark Coleman for 21 minutes to take the title at UFC 14 in July 1997, becoming just the promotion’s second heavyweight champion.

“There is no such thing as having enough cardio,” Rutten said. “There never is. You can always get better in cardio. It’s actually the only thing you can control out there.”

Smith will be officially inducted in the UFC Hall of Fame in July, standing alongside the biggest names in the history of the sport in the Pioneers wing.

Rutten, for one, said it’s well deserved.

“I love it,” Rutten said. “A big congratulations to him.”

For more on the UFC’s upcoming schedule, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.

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