By Dexter Reyes
At UFC 126, Anderson Silva retained his middleweight title by knocking out Vitor Belfort in the first round with a front push kick to the chin.
It was obvious that Vitor Belfort hasn’t been a top fighter in years, the fight was a mismatch from the start, but UFC President Dana White is like P. T. Barnum, he can sell a fight and get people to believe the hype.
Not saying Anderson Silva isn’t a great fighter, he is, but his UFC 126 fight with Vitor Belfort was an obvious mismatch from the start.
Vitor Belfort is younger than Silva but way past his prime, he came into the fight looking shrunken and flat with gaunt dry skin and no muscle like he spent the last few weeks trying to maintain a lower weight.
The first time Anderson Silva fought a guy with some decent understanding of boxing and how to time his punches, was Chael Sonnen. Sonnen was winning against Silva but like Chael Sonnen always does he manages to throw away big fights by winding up in a triangle choke and getting submitted.
If Sonnen kept it standing he could have easily beat Silva and won a wide decision, but for some reason he went into Silva’s guard and got caught in a modified triangle/armbar and the rest is history.
Now they have the super-fight looming between the UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva and the UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre. This is the MMA version of Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Manny Pacquiao. The only difference is the Silva vs. GSP fight has more chance of happening than the Mayweather vs. Pacquiao fight.
This Silva-GSP fight is very good sell that will likely break all UFC pay-per-view records, and it will happen if GSP gets by Jake Shields a strong wrestler and Gracie jiu jitsu specialist with sub par striking.
If GSP wants to beat Shields, he should keep it standing because he has nothing to worry about striking wise coming from Shields. If Georges St-Pierre decides to take the fight to the ground he gives Jake a chance to win. Shields best chance to pull something off would be from his back, and Georges St-Pierre displayed awesome movement and jab against Josh Koscheck, he only needed to use a jab to beat Koscheck so this would also be a good strategy to use against someone like Jake Shields.
As for GSP vs. Silva, I favor Anderson Silva, the guy is too dynamic for St-Pierre and too big for him. GSP’s best bet would be to shoot on Silva and take him down and try to hold him down to win a decision like that. Striking goes to Silva, his reach and movement is too much, and he also has the power advantage and we’ve seen Georges St-Pierre knocked out before by Matt Serra so we know his chin can be checked.
I feel the biggest threat to Anderson Silva is at 205 a guy who has longer arms, and fights like Anderson Silva, his name is Jon Jones. If Jones can defeated Mauricio “Shogun” Rua and capture the UFC light-heavyweight title, I could see him reigning as 205 champ for a long time and even favor him against Silva. I favor him against Silva because for the first time we would see someone with a style that Anderson has never faced before, Silva is used to fighting tailor-made opponents shorter than him that are slow with no foot movement or style and Anderson has said in past interviews that his ideal match-up would be, himself versus his clone, and Jon Jones is light-heavweight Anderson Silva clone.
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