[IMG]http://www.**************/absolutenm/articlefiles/10697-ChaelSonnen05UFC109Press.jpg[/IMG]

Hiding behind the ref is not 'fighting a smart fight', and neither is such excessive timidity. He really should have had multiple points docked for breaking the rules for timidity.

yeah CHAEL > gsp

gsp is a much better striker but that doesn't really matter against silva cause they'll both get raped standing. CHAEL is a lot bigger and a better wrestler. altho he is also a lot more likely to fall into a triangle

ahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

I wouldn't be so sure that Chael is a better wrestler. It's not like we've seen anybody stop GSP's takedowns with any consistency. One just can't assume if he moved up to 185 he'd get his takedowns stuffed. For all we know what Chael did to Nate, GSP does the same thing when they train together. Also Chael's submission defense seems to be awful, while that's not a problem for GSP. I think submission defense from the top is important for a wrestler and should be considered part of how good their wrestling is because who cares if you have great takedowns and top control if everytime you have a good BJJ guy on his back he taps you.

There's a lot more to wrestling than takedowns and takedown defense. MMA wrestling involves inflicting damage while maintaining control and GSP has had trouble doing that at 170. When you factor in that he won't be way bigger and stronger than everyone at 185, I think it's pretty clear that Chael is a better MMA wrestler than him at 185.

He's also probably a better pure wrestler anyway as he's been doing it for a lot longer.

I still think gsp would have a much better shot at silva... Id bet his takedown % against the spider in the long term would be way higher than chael's. Possibly submitting him more often than sonnen, and I dont think sonnen can finish silva by ground striking.

By curiosity were the numbers released for the takedowns against hardy? I imagine he really did manage to get 100% of his takedowns right?

I'd say that Maia had about a 1/50 chance of getting lucky and catching Silva. I think that by fighting the way he did, Silva gave Maia a 1/500 chance of winning.

So your problem is with the refereeing in the fight(for not taking points away)?


Thats kinda how I feel about the NY Yankees...its so unfair that they abuse the lack of a salary cap, but in the end I can't really blame them and instead I must blame the stupid rules that are in place that allow them to take advantage of it.

Terrible analogy. There are rules in place to stop what Silva did, and they weren't enforced.

LOL, what? Are you Ed Soares? Listen Anderson Silva is my favorite fighter but what he did in the last 3 rounds was absolutely ridiculous. Anderson Silva is the best striker in all of MMA, Maia is one of the worst and on top of that Maia doesn't have the ability to bring the fight to where he is best at against Silva. Due to those factors this fight could've and should've been over quickly, instead Silva threw at most 15 strikes in the final 2 rounds. At the very least Silva should've been more active just to appease the fans who paid 50 bucks to watch the fight on PPV and the fans in attendance who spent a lot more in a new market that the UFC is hoping to get big in. Remember without fans there is no sport, and no matter what anybody thinks everything you do in spectator sports is to appease the fans so they pay to watch you do your thing so you can make money. If nobody wants to watch you then you don't make money.

youre way too results oriented

maia took town sonnen who is by far the best wrestler in that division.

maia doesn't exactly have an explosive double leg but if they clinched or silva was throwing strikes at close distance he could definitely have taken the fight to the ground

i dont think silva made the right decision given the **** he's taking, but he increased his chances of winning significantly.

maia had probably more like 7-9% equity at the start of the third round if silva contiinued having a standardish gameplan. bettors gave maia ~15% equity before the fight and after 2 rounds he hadn't taken a lot of damage (iirc). nobody thought maia had much of a chance of winning on points

had hadnt taken a lot of damage?

he was about to die

oh i dont remember

point is he had more than a 1 outer with 1 card to come

he probably gave him more of a chance by letting him continue and take breaks during rounds.

silva couldve seriously ended the fight inside 10 seconds at MULTIPLE occasions without risking anything. Maia was looking for a way out in multiple occasions but silva was just having fun breaking his face and dancing...

Silva could've kept distance between him and Maia avoiding a possible clinch takedown and still deliver punishment kind've like how he did whenever he wanted to in the 1st 2 rounds. Don't give me these ******ed poker analogies for an MMA fight. Maia had no chance of securing a shoot takedown so as long as Silva kept the right distance Maia would've eaten strikes until the ref stopped it.

so i'm assuming you had your entire bankroll on silva -600?

What on Earth does that have to do with anything? For one I rarely bet on on sports, and when I do it's generally just for a sweat. Before the fight I bought the hype of people talking about Silva's TD defense not being great, so I thought Maia had some chance to win, but after watching the fight the only hope Maia had to takedown Silva was in a clinch and I honestly can't think of a way Maia could get close enough to Silva to get a clinch. However next time Silva fights somebody who has bad striking and lacks an explosive double or single leg takedown I will be betting a bunch on Silva.

Vegas is smart. They had Maia winning the fight like 14% of the time. You seem to think Maia wins that fight 0% of the time. Vegas is smarter than you.

Wrong. Vegas does not make odds based on how often THEY think something will happen they make odds based on what they think the PUBLIC thinks will happen.

lol

He's right, but it doesn't help his argument.

That's pretty much a fallacy. They balance lines according to action, but that usually ends up getting it pretty damn close to correct. It also reallllly doesn't help his case in this instance since all square money is going to be on Anderson.

Did you guys see the new issue of Maxim? Arianny Celeste is a like a dream come true. Good god almighty. Best thing to come out of MMA for sure.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LUI29iTyrg

My argument is simply Maia has next to no chance of beating Silva, the Vegas odds are totally irrelevant to that. After seeing both of them in the cage together Maia doesn't have better than a 2% chance of beating Silva. The only chance for Maia to win would be for Silva to either somehow trap himself against the cage which allows Maia to secure a takedown and then submit Silva before the round ends or for Silva to rock Maia and goes in for the kill but Maia isn't hurt as bad as Silva thinks and he's able to get a takedown.

I mean this discussion is irrelevant, you guys are arguing with me over semantics, you think Maia had a better chance of winning the fight than I did, but nobody thought Maia would win and if they fought again you wouldn't think he could win. WTF cares if Vegas gave Maia a 14% chance to win, I can guarantee if they fought again it would be lower and it would probably still be too high.