To make it interesting, let's say that we take a prime version of both of them. In my mind, that would be the version of Silva that beat Rich Franklin versus the GSP that beat Fitch. Who would have taken it? This content is protected
Back around 2008 there were talks of a 177lbs catch weight. Silva and his manager Ed Soares didn’t want any part of it.
Silva always struggled with wrestlers, especially those who could merge striking with the threat of the TD. Outside of prime Fedor nobody in the history of sport was better at this than GSP.
But could he have survived Silva's guard when he did get the top position? Silva had an extremely dangerous offensive guard that was well suited for mma purposes; he made excellent use of elbows from his back to slice opponent's up, and upkicks when they tried to posture up. And he was always looking for submissions off his back (triangles, armbars, kimuras). I know Silva struggled desperately against Chael in their first fight and GSP had much better submission defense and positional control than Chael did, but Chael is also a much bigger man than GSP is. Silva ultimately got those triangle chokes against Lutter and Chael, even though they posed a real danger to him beforehand. And we have at least one example, in the Bisping fight, where GSP did get sliced up pretty badly by elbows when he was ontop. Granted, that was an older, very sick and extremely rusty GSP, but it is worth mentioning. I agree that GSP would be able to largely control the range and the flow of the fight with his near perfect mixing of striking and grappling. But if he could control top position and avoid threats from Silva's guard while doing some good work from the top, could he maintain that for five rounds against the much bigger man? Could he have avoided Silva's sniper like strikes, like an unexpected elbow or high kick that came out of nowhere, during the stretches where they fight did end up back on the feet? Chael was doing good excellent and then out of nowhere Silva caught him with a stepping in elbow and started slicing him up from his back. The exhaustion of fending off constantly threats and damage from Silva on the feet and his back eventually took their toll on Chael and he lapsed in concentration because of it even though he was dominating the fight. Would GSP have been able to be perfect for the entire fight? This content is protected This content is protected
As you said GSP's sub defense was top notch. Not a guy who was susceptible to having his posture broken, swept or wrist controlled on top. GSP maintaining top position is a GOOD spot for him and a very BAD one for Silva. Silva's striking despite being effective against the level of opposition he generally fought, was fairly one dimensional. He was only really good at catching guys on the counter lunging in recklessly or goading them into making a mistake. Whenever he fought a cagey opponent who fought within themselves he looked poor. Sonnen was stronger yes, but he was also a lot slower, far less versatile and a mental midget in the big moments. I see Silva getting popped with the jab, dropped 2/3x times, controlled on the ground and generally made to look pedestrian.
