Hughes is not only a fossil, he's a retired fossil, and would now lose to anyone now in MMA, let alone in the UFC. Saying they'd beat him today means little. However, at the time he first fought GSP he was the best WW on the planet, and if he'd fought Shields or Hendricks back then (were they even training MMA) he'd have knocked their heads off. That's the problem with intergenerational fights -- when the older guys were in their prime the young guys were kids. By the time the young guys are in their prime the old guys are either retired, or so far past their prime they should be retired.
That 23 year old GSP that Hughes beat was in far better shape (no knee injury -- he was never close to being the same after that, not burnt out physically or mentally by a decade of fighting) than the GSP who fought Shields and Hendricks. And I say that as someone who quite obviously doesn't particularly like GSP (like I said, he didn't deserve his fight with Bisping, and looked like he hadn't bothered training for it even once he got it). Hughes finished a better version of GSP than the one who went the distance with Shields and Hendricks.
