Not to mention the rough fights he had with Arona and Hunt around the same time as well. Wanderlei was clearly an extinguished force by the time he entered the UFC.
Wanderlei used to be a P4P God, by the time he came to UFC he was basically a Gatti type guy who brings excitement and action. As I said, if Liddell was superior he'd have won the GP instead of Wandy.
He was just more capable of competing when past prime. Wandy had the prime knocked out of him. Liddell lost his desire. Two very different cases of decline.
Liddell had the prime knocked out of him by Rampage, he was never remotely the same after. Sure there were times in his career where he didn't prepare as well as he should've for fights but I see his late career was an example of going to the well one too many times. He came into the Rich Franklin fight in the best shape of his life but there was just nothing left. Wanderlei was still young enough to squeeze out a few more decent performances.
Coming in with abs isn't always an indication of a good camp. I just don't think he was willing to put the hours in any more to keep his kickboxing and wrestling at the elite level. I genuinely don't think he was hungry any more. I think Wandy was still hungry but just wasn't as good as he used to be.
Not really. Wanderlei just fought on for longer - not to mention most of Chuck's losses after this fight came to top fighters like Evans, Rua and he was beating the hell out of Franklin before his chin let him down. Wanderlei dropped a fight to ****ing Leben. Merry XMAS!
I didn't say Liddell was the superior fighter. I think he beats Wanderlei head to head. It's a style thing, and it rang true when they faced each other. Liddell was 7 years older than Silva, and went 1-5 in his last 6 fights. His lone win was against Wanderlei. Liddell was 0-2 going into the Silva fight, and 0-3 afterward.
A sharp shooter does usually beat a pressure fighter, I agree there. But MMA has more facets to it, for instance how would Liddell have coped in the MT clinch? Would you have ever picked Page to twice stop Chuck?
I didn't see Page and Chuck live, and knew the result of their Pride encounter before I watched it. I don't really remember having an opinion before it happened. I remember picking Chuck to ko Couture before that fight, and being shocked when that didn't happen. I was not surprised to see Page win his 2nd fight with Chuck, but I was surprised that it happened so fast.
I had seen a couple of MMA fights but UFC 31 was the 1st live MMA event I watched on TV and to this day I still remember so much from the event including seeing the scary looking Chuck destroy former Heavyweight champ Randleman in 1 round. Prime Chuck from around that time and after from approx. 2001-2006 would have probably destroyed most of the current top 10 except Cormier obviously, maybe Gustaffson who would have been competitive and Ozdemir who would of had the power to cause some concern.
If it weren't for the Page loss we could argue Liddell was the goat. Unless Chuck one bombs Wandy I just don't see him winning.
Or he could just bust him up on points, utilizing accurate straight punches that get in before Wanderlei's winging hooks just like in their real fight. Just because fighter A beat fighter B doesn't mean he'd beat fighter C who lost to B.
