A very solid case for GSP as #1 P4P
mmafighting.com/2010/12/14/dominance-of-georg...Posted Dec 15, 2010, 6:54 AM UTC
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mmafighting.com
When you think of 2010 and all of the title holders in the UFC, the ONLY one that wasn't either beaten or challenged (at all) was GSP.
Penn - beaten...twice
Silva - took a 430 minute ass whippin before subbing Sonnen
Machida - beaten (twice kinda)
Brock - beaten up then actually beaten.
GSP didn't lose a round...not...one...round.
GSP isn't my favorite, but it's real hard to argue that he isn't the best.
edit: formatting
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Until he makes a former champion in a weight class outside his own look like an amateur he doesn't hold a candle to Silva. Silva may have not had the best fight during his last performance (despite facing a roided opponent with a rib injury) he still hasn't ever lost and isn't afraid to take risks. GSP is a master game planner and knows how to score points, but he is not the best fighter.
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Until he makes a former champion in a weight class outside his own look like an amateur
You mean Forrest "Fell too close to the tree" Griffin? Then epitome of brawling caveman retard? The guy who's style is absolutely tailor made to be beaten by Silva's counter punching style? That former champion?
Fuck sakes, "The Dean of Awkward Fighting Styles" Keith Jardine beat the shit out of Forrest too.
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I didn't mean to be so flippant with my short Silva summary above. I'm a fan of his. I do believe the P4P argument has 4 fighters in the discussion that include Fedor, Silva, GSP and Aldo with Cain lurking on the fringe.
If I had to pick one con with Silva, it's his last 9.5 rounds. He just hasn't been the force we've come to expect. Perhaps I should temper my expectations, however, while Silva's limped through his last 9.5 rounds, GSP has gotten better. GSP hasnt' beaten a former champion outside of his weight class, but he has dominated BJ Penn at WW and I don't think that should be minimized.
I guess there's one way to separate GSP and Silva and that's for them to fight. This really needs to happen as they've cleaned out both divisions.
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complete game
This is why GSP is such a great argument for the #1 spot. His game is clearly more complete than Anderson's. BUT, Anderson hasn't lost since his DQ...and he's so awesome.
If P4P means GSP would be Anderson's size, it seems like the fight (might) go the way of Chael v Anderson but with no sub at the end.
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More complete than Silva how?
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Wrestling.
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Probably conditioning as well, though Silva's hardly lacking in that department.
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Great read. Thanks.
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I don't understand GSP's detractors... "he isn't violent enough" ??? He busted Kos's eye orbit and then pounded on it for 20 more minutes!! That's gratuitously violent!
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Lol, one of my coaches hates him... I have no idea why, but he's always coming up with reasons to dislike him (He also hates Roy Nelson... how can anybody hate Roy Nelson?). Blows my mind because GSP seems like a coach's dream.
I don't think the complaint is that he's not violent enough, but that he's not a finisher. Some people's sense of respect just demands a killer KO highlight reel before giving approval.
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The sport is not about violence. For this sport to gain wider aproval it needs to continiue to market their fighters as athletes, rather than violent brutes. The detractors you mentioned that complained about the level of violence exhibited by GSP are the same drunk degenerates that appear on first row during walk-ins. Fuck them. They are ruining everything.
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here's my two cents. right now, i have a hard time ranking a number 1. in my opinion, gsp and fedor are tied for number 1 with anderson at number 3. Both gsp and fedor have COMPLETE games, and i would argue fedor slightly takes the edge because of his finishing ability. he has finished people by armbar, knockout, everything. Also, he just lost. But, so did GSP, twice in the last 4 years or so. Although Fedor's spot atop the heavyweight division is in question (not in my eyes), i would argue, as far as complete game goes, coupled with finishing ability, Fedor still takes number 1 51 out of 100 times, with gsp taking it 49/100 times.
edit: in addition, in a sense that he is POUND for POUND the best, you have to account for the fact that when fedor enters the cage against heavyweights, he is lighter than Forrest when he enters the cage for his light heavyweight bouts. Fedor has been fighting people 30 to 40 pounds heavier than him his entire career, and is definitely not packing 230 pounds of muscle. that is a major factor, in my eyes, for him being the best pound for pound. i guess, with his loss, maybe GSP takes pound for pound best right now, with fedor being the best p4p of all time. i dunno. it's all kinda meaningless anyway, just my two cents.
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I've been saying for two years that GSP does not fight to his strengths, he fights to his opponent's weakness. He will out game plan and out class anyone he faces. I really liked the comparison at the end of the article about him being MMA's Gretsky/Maddux/Sanders. So true.
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GSP does not fight to his strengths, he fights to his opponent's weakness.
Well it helps that he is strong in every single element of the sport so he has that kind of flexibility. It also means that he doesn't have to worry much about protecting or compensating for his own weaknesses in his gameplan. H
e simply has more tools in his kit than his opponents, and he is extremely smart about choosing the right tools for the right job.
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Very valid points. It is very hard to beat someone who is that good in so many aspects of the sport. I think the scariest thing about GSP is the fact that he isn't even in his prime yet. Every time he fights and completely dominates a top ranked opponent I can't help but think that in his next fight he will be even better.
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GSP's opponents have by far been more skilled fighters than anyone Silva has faced, with the exception of Henderson and Sonnen. The welterweight division shits on the middleweight division any day, and twice on Sundays.
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Agreed, and I would say most of them have been better than Sonnen, too.
Ace in their first fight was at the top of his game, you have to throw him in there for Silva.
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It keeps getting mentioned that GSP kept the fight standing. Wrong... Koscheck kept the fight standing, GSP wasn't able to take him down and keep him down.. The trouble is GSP is comfortable anywhere...
Using the jab was plan B, and if that didn't work there more than likely would have been a plan C, D and E..
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I think the jab was plan A. He had more success in his stand up than before he tried his first take down attempts.
I think take downs were a part of the strategy to keep Kos uncomfortable, and it worked.
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His first take town attempt was 15 seconds into the fight, 1 jab landed before that... He couldn't keep Koscheck down, Koscheck just wanted to stand with him because there's alway a chance he'd connect with a punch, it could have took another 30 rounds though...
Conclusion is GSP is p4p the best, he's extremely good in every aspect of MMA..
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Is that right? 15 seconds in? I have yet to rewatch the fight, that's just how I remembered it.
In any event, I agree on all counts, and regardless of which was plan A or which was B, the guy had his shit together going into that fight.
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I think GSP said in the post-fight interviews that he didn't want to take Kos down, he just wanted to discourage him from shooting in by threatening the takedown. The standup/jab was his primary plan.
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I see what you're saying, GSP was what 2/4 on takedowns, and both got back to their feet.
But what I think happened was GSP basically realized "I'm tearing it up on my feet, takedowns are 50/50 right now, I'll just keep standing."
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What? BJ Penn is clearly the best P4P fighter in the world.
/joe rogan
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I think that GSP could be p4p one day...but right now I think that Anderson's better record in title fights outweighs GSP's ability to win rounds.
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meh, anderson just got DEMOLISHED for 5 rounds then pulled a sub. that shows incredible heart. but, shows he's not the most skilled fighter on the planet. gsp and fedor's losses were split second mistakes, and neither of them have ever actually been on the receiving end of a fight (except maybe gsp vs bj 1, he took a little beating)
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Mistakes or not, Fedor and GSP's losses were more recent than Silva's last. Silva has been on top longer than anyone ever has, that's why he's number one. Ratings are based on accomplishments, not who could beat someone else. A great example is Overeem, who I believe would easily beat every other heavyweight in the world. But his best recent accomplishment in MMA is beating Bret Rogers. That doesn't make him number one. Whether or not you think he's the most skilled, Anderson is currently the most accomplished.
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I don't like the argument that these ratings are based on accomplishments. If they were anything other than conjecture and discussion, they would have to be. If this was the BCS where the top two spots have a chance at the national championship, then they'd have to be based on a more win/lose system. But they aren't. Anderson Silva doesn't get anything for being #1 P4P. So, if they don't mean anything tangible, why shouldn't they be about who would beat the most people the most times?
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Silva has been on top longer than anyone ever has
Really? Really?
Fedor was the PRIDE champion from March 2003 until PRIDE's collapse in 2007. Since he hadn't lost the championship at that point he was still the lineal champion, which he remained until June 2010 when he was beaten by Werdum.
That's just over 7 years on top. Furthermore he went 9.5 years between losses, and most people stick an asterisk on the first loss as it was due to a rules technicality. If you discount his first "loss", he went undefeated for over 10 years and 34 matches.
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Unfortunately Pride was more concerned with putting on tournaments and freak shows than defending its titles. For as long as fighters like Fedor and W. Silva held their belts, they should've had many more defenses.
Edit: I don't see why I'm being downvoted. Im stating facts. Anderson has more title defenses than GSP and Fedor combined, and currently is on the longest winning streak between the two. He's had more success in multiple weight classes then them, and has finished top fighters on the ground and standing. What more do you expect?
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Agreed. GSP would probably win within the ruleset the UFC uses, but I think Silva is honestly a better fighter.
Not to discount GSP, but I really cannot picture Anderson being submitted or TKOed by him. I can absolutely see him losing in a blowout decision though.
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A case can be made for GSP to be #1 but in my mind its not enough, until Silva loses or retires I can't see him moving from that #1 spot.
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The "P4P" debate is so pointless.
It's a hypothetical ranking of fighters that don't fight each other. What's the point? The entire premise of MMA is to find out who the most skilled fighters are by having them fight each other.
It doesn't matter who is ranked #1, or #2, or #5 or #6 in the P4P argument, because the whole thing is entirely, absolutely meaningless.
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I came here to say one thing and one thing only: This controversy over GSP not finishing fights is ridiculous.
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I'm a huge GSP fan but I was disappointed a bit in his fight. Not how most people seem to be disappointed (not finishing the fight), but I noticed that when Koscheck was going for the heel hook or kneebar or whatever, GSP grabbed the fence to climb up out of it. I don't have the depth of knowledge to say if he was actually in trouble or not, but I thought it was kind of weak.
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The person missing from that discussion is Fedor, but since he lost to Werdum we can set him aside until he has another win. I believe he's more skilled than GSP and Anderson though.
The neat thing about Anderson Silva is that he's beat top five competition in three weight classes. He's the only fighter to do that. He beat Mach Sakurai when he was a top 5 170, he beat Franklin and Henderson when they were top middleweights, and he beat Forrest Griffin after he had beaten Shogun and Rampage and lost to Rashad.
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Forrest, meh. Dude's a mid level fighter at best. The win over Rampage is debatable, and Shogun was hardly Shogun in that fight given the condition of his knee and his resultant cardio.
I agree about Fedor though.
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Well, he beat two people who were considered #1 at the time that he beat them; that puts him at #1 by virtue of MMAth, even if his skills don't back it up.
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I suppose, but in a discussion of P4P wouldn't it make more sense to talk about skills than using MMA math?
So in that sense the overall level of skill of GSP's opponents have been arguably better, if not definitively.
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Yeah, but you have to look at actual performance instead of just theoretical performance, or else you get BJ Penn Fan Syndrome, where he can lose repeatedly and still have people swear he's the best.
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Anderson Silva finishes his fights.
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Prior to this, in his last 6 fights GSP had 3 finishes and 3 go to decisions. In Anderson Silva's last 6 fights he's had 3 finishes, 2 decisions and and fight that was on it's way to a boring decision until a freak injury occurred.
So if Anderson goes to decision with Vitor is he going to pick up the boring tag?
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Nope, i doubt 25mins with Vitor Belfort will be boring, plus he'll have a 13 win streak over another top contender.
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Vitor Belfort isn't a top contender. Hell, this is going to be his first UFC fight at 185.
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No shit. Dude hasn't fought since September, 2009. His ring rust will be something awful.
That said, I think it'll be an exciting fight, if Belfort isn't too rusty. They're both strikers, but I expect that Silva will bend reality just enough that we get another glimpse of the matrix, just before he KOs Vitor.
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I asked a what if, and you replied by giving your prediction. That's not the same thing.
If Patrick Cote hadn't hurt his knee he was going to knock out Anderson in the 4th. (trollface.jpg)
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Thats the problem with both these guys, one gets the feeling that GSP is too cautious or lacks knock out power to get consistent finishes, while Anderson Silva is content to just fuck around instead of actually fighting.
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This "finishes fights" bullshit doesn't really wash. Is Tyson better than Ali because he KO'd people?
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My favourite thing about GSP+coaches is how they prepare and executes their gameplans. I looove thinking fight strategy.
GSP's so versatile, there's so many ways he can approach an opponent, and exploit their expectations and weaknesses, I'm always excited to see how he's going to approach each fight.
My favourite fight was GSP v. Hughes 3. In the second fight, GSP used a sprawl & kickbox strategy to win. In the third fight, he came in and turned his last gameplan on its head, putting hughes on his back, and working his jiu-jitsu and ground & pound, basically using Hughes' regular strategy on him.
I never saw that one coming.
GSP and his camp are masters of matching St. Pierre's strengths to his opponents weaknesses. He is the epitome of combat athlete and goes in with a gameplan just like football teams, basketball teams, and any other sports participant does. I wish more Mixed Martial Artists would take this route and do less "Tank Abbott" style fighting. While it is exciting, it is just a brawl and not a sport. I love the mental chess that MMA brings.
I agree. I think the more fans that MMA attracts, the more room in the sport there will be for fighters like GSP. Knockouts, brawls and violence is what attracts most fans to the sport. And the longer they watch, the more they understand. Then they think more and more in depth about the strategy involved. I used to be bored shitless when watching a clinch war or any sort of ground game. Now I watch and appreciate the less flashy elements of the sport a lot more and have grown to love GSP.
Really? That's my least favorite part of his fight game. Such gems as "dance around and throw jabs!" and "don't pass guard!" leave a bad taste in my mouth. Ever since the Serra humiliation he and his coaches refuse to take any sort of risk. Just look at his last fight with Kos: he was out on his feet and could have easily been destroyed in round 4 or 5 yet the gsp corner insisted on picking apart a near-finished opponent with jabs.
This is the zenith of top level MMA. If you can't find any excitement in witnessing one of the most versatile and calculating MMA champion of all time find a new and unique way to pick apart a top contender, maybe the UFC is not for you. Even the average fan enjoyed the GSP/Kos fight enough to vote it their fight of the night.
If you just want to watch random violence with lots of KO/Sub finishes, there's plenty of B and C level promotions out there where the guys fight on instinct and adrenaline and haven't yet learned proper striking/submission defence.
I like how you think the UFC and mma in general exists for any reason other than entertainment. That is entertaining to me. Sure, it's nice to see the ground control of Fitch in action but there's a reason he's not a superstar in the sport. An impressive fighter is one who is so confident in his talent and abilities he takes risks and ends fights quickly (cain and silva are prime examples, as is shogun). Guys like Carwin and Jones who come in with the sole purpose of destroying their opponent will "always" be held in higher regard than those who take the easy route and hold back due to fear(except maybe in whatever twisted little circle you belong to).
What you are a fan of is far from the zenith of mma, sorry.
Don't pass guard? GSP is more active in trying to pass guard on the ground than any other fighter I've seen in the UFC, including guys at a muuuuch higher level of BJJ than him.
In the Dan Hardy fight, Jackson could be heard yelling to GSP not to pass guard. As I said, it has nothing to do with his ability and I doubt you even read my comment at all.
That's one strategic moment versus an established history of being one of the best in the sport at passing guard. I seem to recall him even passing Penn's guard, though I may be misremembering that.