Anderson Silva v. James Irvin

[Pinky]

Umm, no he wasn't. Not to take anything away from Serra, but no, GSP's most difficult opponent was not Serra. Hughes definitely graces number one on that chart, and besides, the forearm did not catch Pierre on the back of the head, no, it caught GSP on the side of the forehead. There would have been much more controversy if it was indeed the back of the head, but no... BAM it was there, cold and hard, Matt Serra clean knocked out GSP. It's actually not luck that Serra hit GSP with that punch, if you look at the fight type, Serra set the punch up with a small jab first, it was not like he was falling back and he hit some weird back kick that rocked GSP, no.. It was a hard hook, and although he may not have used his knuckles on the contact, he intended to hit GSP at that time, with his right hook.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ETa3k4-uoe4

You can actually see the moment of contact if you pause it at the very end of the 0:08th second in the video. Serra's bicep is closer to GSP's face than his hand during the impact frame, George's face is down because he's trying to duck the strike, and the forearm is right there on the back of his head. It doesn't knock him down, but it leaves him stunned which is what sets up Serra's following attacks.

And after the last two fights between GSP and Hughes it's comical to think that Hughes has been George's toughest opponent. Fat Penn gave George more trouble than Hughes did in their last two fights put together. George has become an anti-wrestler specialist, and his most difficult fights have been against the BJJ blackbelts that swing with heavy hands.

Actually, if you analyze it correctly, Strength and Reach are both on Rashad's side. Don't forget that Rashad was a heavyweight, yeah, a heavyweight, I've yet to see him completely outpowered by someone his own weightclass, less to say someone from a weightclass that was a stepdown to his own. Although Rashad may lose in Speed, Accuracy and Endurance due to cutting so much weight, but he definitely has Reach advantage, and he displays versatility. Personally I've rarely see the Iceman on the ground, and I've never seen him excel at ground work, except for avoiding takedown. If I was Rashad, I'd use my size advantage and strength advantage, and try to take the fight on the ground.

Even though Liddell has lazy posture he's still visibly taller than Rashad and he has those long monkey arms, so I don't know why you'd think that Evans has superior reach. Chuck's opponents talk about how unusually hard he hits, and Chuck has said that he usually breaks one of his hands because he punches so hard. All of the top LHW fighters walk around at 215-235 so Rashad isn't cutting any more weight than the rest of them. Rashad's skillset is limited to basic striking and sitting on top of people in the guard position; I can't think of a single time when he's kicked at anyone's head or tried to pull a submission off and I could probably use one hand to count the number of successful position advances he's made on the ground, so the versatility he's shown is that of the average fighter. See, when you post these kinds of things it just reinforces my belief that you're gay for Rashad.

No actually, discipline in the octagon is one thing, but I know for a fact that there is no room for mistakes in a competition. I've never done straight up fighting, but I've sparred with many local fighters up here in Canada, and I know that playing against someone, even at the local stage, making a mistake = letting them captilize. It was a simple spar, we had like shin guards and everything, and even in a spar a mistake can be fatal. A backfist against a skill ground grappler will end you up on your back, and entering his game. There's a lot to go through for Lyoto, Tito was just a testing stage for him, besides, Tito's mentality in that fight was bad. After losing by a rough KO to Chuck Liddell, and then drawing up with someone that was said to be "out of his league." Usually when a fighter loses, their mind shuts down until the next fight, and if they lose again, or fail to finish an "easy" opponent, you can practically imagine how hard they are on themselves, and how that could fuck up someone's mentality. If Lyoto does finish Thiago Silva and very decisively like how Anderson Silva does to his opponents. If you look at Thiago Silva, I'm pretty sure Lyoto's got his hands full, Thiago have finished all but one fight and he also displays wide versatility. For me, Thiago is more a favorite to win than Lyoto.

It's funny that the points you bring up about mistakes should convince you that Thiago is the underdog in the coming match with Machida. Thiago's recent fight against Mendes started off with him trying to shrug off a head kick and he ended up on his ass, while Lyoto's mistakes are few and far between. Thiago's just another good striker while Lyoto has fought and finished a more impressive striker Sokoudjou, a more seasoned fighter Nakamura, and a much stronger freestyle fighter Tito - and he beat them in that order. I don't know what you call "versatility" but Thiago has shown very little other than that he's aggressive to a fault.

Winning split decisions are not luck, obviously, if you wanted to put any decision under contest, you can just about make any decision controversial. If you've actually seen Rashad fight, and not just blankly look at his records, you'd know he's more than someone that only picks up decision wins.

I've seen all of Rashad's fights, and the only non-decision wins he's had are against fighters that are not and never will be contenders. All of his decision wins are split decisions, and split decisions in the UFC are notorious for being unpredictable (might as well be a coin-toss), so yes, the fact that he's won every split decision he's had is very lucky.

Having knowledge about fight sports entertainments does not mean you have knowledge about the art. Of course, as an artist I respect both Rashad and Liddell's abilities. I've never said that Rashad is going to PWN Chuck Liddell, I'm just saying that there is no for sure in a sport, and many people is skeptical about Rashad, but it doesn't mean Chuck will win. In fact, I like Chuck as an entertainer and an artist more than Rashad, but to be non-biased while watching a fight is more fun than thinking one sided. Rashad has what it takes to beat Chuck, and Chuck has what it takes to beat Rashad, so we'll just see.

And being a bottom-rung member of some gym owned by a guy who knows a guy doesn't give you superior insight on fight sports. You've been pretty arrogant about your status as an "artist" throughout this whole thread, so now I'm going to have to tell you that if you don't have first-hand experience being a professional fighter than you're going to have to stop patting yourself on the back. Your opinion here is anything but unbiased: you've consistently exaggerated Rashad's abilities and record while acting as if Chuck's abilities and record aren't as impressive as they actually are.

Maybe coming from different parts of the world you have seen people who actually like the ground arts, but from where I am, everybody wants to see a brawl. I particularly like both, there are many things you can learn from both aspects and I just love being entertained by people that are professional fighters. Also I'd like to point out that many people like to take their opponent down, and just stay there and rest, which of course gets booed. But when standing up, there's basically no choice but to exchange, and thats the beauty of stand up, by doing nothing, you can't achieve anything. But on the ground, by doing nothing, you're securing your victory with takedown points and resting yourself. From the looks of it, you're a Lyoto die-hard fan, and I wouldn't count him out, but I'd to like see him do more in the UFC. What's counted in the UFC is what's seen in it, so even though Lyoto defeated well known fighters elsewhere, it doesn't mean he had done so in the UFC. I wouldn't go as far to say the Tito fight was a fluke, but he has to do more to prove he deserves a title shot.

This made me laugh. Rashad is one of those people that relies on scoring points via takedowns and tends to do nothing when he gets there (vs Bonnar, Bisping, Ortiz) and his most impressive performances were outside of the UFC. I'm only a fan of The Dragon because he's proven himself to be a strong fighter with a great style - it's not as bloody and flashy as most others; instead, he doesn't waste energy, he gets into an exchange only when he wants to, when he does exchange he wins, and he can instantly become dangerously aggressive at will. He flung Tito down with a judo throw and pounded on him at the end of the first round, in the third round he knocked Tito down with a knee to the liver (he actually threw that kind of knee several times earlier in the fight) and followed it up with some ground and pound from the guard (which is supposed to be Tito's specialty), he neatly slipped out of two successive submission holds when he was dog tired, and he was controlling Tito in the clinch and throwing all kinds of strikes throughout the match. And Tito is a fighter that Rashad would have lost to had the ref not stolen a point. If you want to believe that Lyoto needs to prove anything after that fight then that's fine (if silly), but it's ridiculous that you're quick to downplay Machida but act like Rashad Evans of all people is a serious contender.

Honestly, I'm not a hardcore fan of Rashad. I've seen his style, it's good, I liked it, but I'm not as crazy about him as I am Anderson Silva. He's a good fighter over all, and let me just tell you that Keith Jardine is not a low-level fighter. Just because his style is unorthadox doesn't mean he sucks dick, if you would just open your eyes and see that. I don't think I will be disappointed, because either way the fight goes in UFC 88, it's going to be exciting. The upcoming title fight for the LHW title will be exciting, and it's because that if Chuck Liddell wins, we can expect to see a fight with a great finish. If Rashad wins, we can expect to see a contest of two tough guys with iron chins, and who falls down first. Which is more than I can say for Machida, he doesn't have a hard chin, nor has he ever proved to be able to deliver a ridiculously great finish.

Maybe you should review your posts: you're coming off as being totally gay for Evans.

I'm not the one who's claiming Jardine sucks, he's the one who's making that case. He only wins every other fight, which is the mark of a lesser fighter because high-quality competitors are able to decisively win in streaks. After winning the TUF2, he won his first real UFC fight and then lost the next one. Keith's first noteworthy win was when he fought an as-yet unseasoned Forrest, and then in his next fight he got butt-raped by a very angry black man in a barroom style brawl. He got busted up by Chuck Liddell but took a decision win anyway because the UFC's scoring system is dumb, and following that he was torn apart by Wanderlei who lost a much more impressive fight to Chuck. I wouldn't care if Keith fought while standing on his head, this kind of record does not impress me.

This isn't some 19th century fisticuffs brawl where the competitors simply exchange punches to the face, it's a real fight. It doesn't matter whether or not Machida can take a hook to the chin because he doesn't just stand there and let people hit him: when it comes down to it, Lyoto is the kind of fighter that consistently and decisively wins, and in the coming years I fully expect to see more sport fighters getting hip to the art of evasion.