The power from punches comes from your legs, hips, and much less from the shoulders and arms. How far would a shot put go if you don't put much focus on activating your legs, hips, core? I see big guys hitting the heavy bags in the gym all the time and they barely move it. Patrick was cautious initially but lost respect for Hugo after the pillow punches. Cote carried Hugo for this charity match. Hugo is very slow.
Interesting...
Regarding the initial caution on behalf of Patrick Cote that you speak of, do you think Hugo's size and strength made Patrick legitimately cautious at first, or do you just mean intelligently cautious in the way that Georges St-Pierre wasn't before the Matt Serra fight?
[it's never a good idea to underestimate anyone at the world level, even a journeyman - GSP overestimated Matt Hughes, and lost, then underestimated Matt Serra, and lost]
After all, Hugo is massive, and still very strong, years after his World's Strongest Man contest days...he has a puncher's chance, right? So was that all you meant about Patrick being cautious...or do you think he may have had any significant concern?
I'm only wondering because it's a huge weight disparity, so I'm curious if you thought the cautiousness you mentioned on behalf of Patrick was actually strong, or if it was just intelligent fight initiating on his part, to feel out his opponent.
I did a YouTube search for more on this match, and watched the weigh-in video: Hugo weighed 327-lb for this bout, and Patrick weighed 228-lb. A 99-lb weight disparity!
Although I'm not sure if size is an advantage after 240-lb or so. Either way, I'm curious to hear your views on this.
I wasn't really sure what this match was, and it didn't look quite real enough or quite fake enough for me to make a good judgment on it - and, I hate to say it but, my French isn't good enough these days to have gathered more information about it. I lost my French fluency from the Canadian French immersion program since I stopped speaking French regularly in 2002, at age 20.

I'm looking into it on YouTube now, to see what this match was about [video below - and there are more like it on YT]. Cool stuff. As I said, Hugo Girard and Patrick Cote both have a shared sponsor - XPN. I think Hugo may even have a hand in the financial backing of XPN. Georges St-Pierre is also sponsored by XPN. As I mentioned above, it is a Quebec-based French Canadian nutrition empire.