I'm not a fan of Anderson Silva, but he is a special fighter.

I would rank Griffin as one of Silvas best wins, definitely, especially in the manner he achieved it. I still have GSP P4P no.1 as well, he doesn't have massive power to always finish fights, but he has put on clinics against the best opposition available.

Silva will be no.1 when he takes GSP out early, his extra size and own skill at staying up will stop all talk of GSP 'taking him down at will', he'll land some fast and accurate early and GSP will be gone.

Still, Silva should be fighting Shogun/Bones soon, after GSP (big money fight against the dominant champ from next weight down, P4P no.1/2 etc etc) there is nothing left for him at 185. He has to move up or retire (I expect he'll do the latter)

 

First off stop with the false equivalencies. Cro Cop was never #1 in his division when Gonzaga and Kongo beat him. Rampage and Shogun were when Forrest beat them. Just because you feel they didn't fight to their potential doesn't mean you should completely discredit those wins. The reality is Forrest has wins over guys that are not only ranked highly now, but are highly ranked as LHW atgs. You don't beat 4 current and former UFC champions by being anything less than very good.

Sure Forrest doesn't have power or a great chin, but to say he only wins fights because of his size and cardio is completely misguided. The man has excellent BJJ and very good technical kickboxing, all which you can see on display in any of his fights. Sounds to me like your being lead by personal bias. Tell me, what fight did Forrest win by "virtue of being huge for his weight class"?

I don't understand why you don't rate Rashad highly either. Even if you don't like the way he fights (and who could?) you have to admit he has wins over top LHWs and deserves to be considered one of the best in the division.

 

I dont rate forest griffin that highly I still dont think he won against rampage and so he was never the #1 LHW in my oppinion. Then he lost to Rashad who was never an A class fighter.

It's true that the way Silva beat Griffin brings that win higher coupled with the size discrepancy that favoured Griffin. I rate that fight higher than Andersons UFC debut in a tko over Leben his fights with Maia, Leites, Cote, Irving and Lutter. So I rate that fight somewhere in the middle of Silvas UfC accomplishments.

But stylistically, it was a very favourable match-up for Silva, with Forests weak punches and shitty defence, and having a tendency to trade shots.

 

There is way too much focus on primes in mma. It's a little different. I laughed at someone saying a somewhat post prime Henderson. As if it even mattered which one turned up.

It's good to see people aren't gargling Sonnen's balls about that fight. Clearly Anderson was legitimately injured. You can tell by how fluent he was on his feet before and after the Sonnen fight, and the way he popped up like a mother****er against Belfort.

 

Griffin isn't the best but he has wins over Rua, Rampage, and just defeated Franklin. The fact that Silva dominated with such ease and ko'd him with a jab while running backwards was impressive and is a good win in his resume considering the circumstances. No one, I mean no one, has whooped Griffin in that fashion, Silva made it seem as if he was fighting a long lost 8yr old little brother. And lets not forget, Griffin is a huge LHW which it showed during the Franklin fight.

 

No one ever said he was the undisputed figurehead at LHW. Shogun was the consensus #1 prior to the Forrest fight but fell down the list following the loss. Therefore Rampage who was #2 at the time move up to #1 based on Shogun losing and the strength of his wins over Liddell and Hendo. Now you could make the argument that Forrest was the true #1 following the Rua win but no one in the world at the time ranked Forrest at the top of the division.

Seriously Popkins how long have you been following MMA?

Its possible to rate fighters objectively based on wins/losses rather than based on personal opinions. For example, I am not a fan of Rashad Evans. I feel that there are a couple fighters at 205 that would demolish him and I don't think much of his lay and pray tactics. However, I still rate him highly based on his wins over top opponents and I rate Machida's win over him highly considering Rashad was ranked #1 at 205 coming into the fight.

Of course Forrest is big for the weight but so are most of his opponents. In fact Forrest has proven to be better against opponents of equal size (Ortiz, Rampage, Shogun) than he has against fighters of a smaller build (Silva, Rashad). My problem with you saying Forrest only wins because of his size and cardio is that you are completely refusing to acknowledge his proven stand up and grappling skills. You are quite the reductionist when it comes to fighters you don't care for.

What is your definition of a "top fighter"? Are you telling me its possible to be the #1 in one of the most competitive divisions in the entire sport (albeit for a brief period of time) yet only be considered a "good fighter"?

 

I expect Silva won't fight until say, October/November against GSP. Okami will have to keep on winning, I'm sure he can be enticed (I.e forced) to wait for the winner, I'm sure Zuffa will strike when the iron is hot.

I also expect Shields to perform better against GSP. Kampmann was not the best of Shields, then again, is Shields best suited to Middleweight these days?

 

Doing rankings based on what you see in fights and who you think is better than who is a useless endeavor. Why? Because fighters fight and upsets happen all the time in MMA and at the end of the day your opinions are 100% worthless. The only way to do rankings objectively is to do them based on record and strength of win/losses relative to the division. So just because I rate fighter A over fighter B, that doesn't necessarily mean I believe A is a better fighter or that A would beat B in a fight. It just means that A is currently in a better position in the division. I do my own rankings btw so stop attaching Dana White and the UFC's opinions to mine.

A lot of fight fans do in fact form opinions based on what they see which is how you get guys like Overeem getting ranked in the top 5 at HW despite having no high profile wins at the weight. Its also why people like to throw around words like "shot" and "past prime" as if these are objective technical terms. Using a fighters performance in one fight to predict how he will do in another is helpful, but don't act like your prediction is anything more than a guess. ATG rankings and current rankings are completely different, as they should be. For example Fedor is ranked higher than Werdum when it comes to greatest heavies of all time, but Werdum is ranked over Fedor in the current rankings.

If you go by actual wins/losses relative to the division rather than how you percieve their ability, then you would see that both Forrest and Rashad were at one point #1 at 205. Sorry you got into the sport late and want to revise history.

 

LOL what did I say about attaching Dana and the UFC's opinions to mine? Did you even read my post?

 

Hackney Vs Yarborough :yep Lovin' that avatar :good