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Originally Posted by DannyOcean_
Silva has been taken down numerous times in his career. By good wrestlers and by mediocre wrestlers.
I've only seen his UFC fights, so i can't comment pre-UFC. With that said, I think hes shown enough improvement during his time in the UFC that we can somewhat discount pre-UFC stuff as well.
I'm pretty sure he came into the Lutter fight with major knee or leg injuries of some kind, which severely limited his TDD. Henderson was quite impressive in the first round, but Silva avoided any major punishment and round 2 was a completely different story. I think its significant that the first two fights that I think of when I think of "whats a fight where Silva got taken down" both ended in Silva submitting his opponents on the ground. It all goes back to what I was saying earlier about Silva's standing game being so good that it causes us to underrate his ground game. Maybe he didn't focus on TDD too much for those fights because he felt confident(and correctly so) that he could get the best of those two opponents on the groud. Maybe he won't feel that same way about Carwin and will practice better TDD against him.
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Carwin is 10x a better wrestler than anyone Silva has ever faced, considering the size difference.
As I said, in the past Silva has been taken down and then won the fight on the ground. If Silva respects his opponent's ground game more, then its quite probable he'll be focusing quite a bit more on TDD during his training and while in the ring.
I just don't follow this logic of yours though:
1. In the past, against guys with good but not great ground game, Silva has been taken down and ended up winning the fight on the ground
2. Carwin has a much better ground game than any of those guys, so Silva probably won't be able to best him on the ground
3. Therefore Silva is going to be taken down by Carwin and beaten on the ground("easily" according to you btw)
I mean, thats pretty much a 100% accurate description of what you're saying, is it not? It completely and totally ignores the concept that maybe, just maybe, Silva doesn't mind going to the ground against guys who are mediocre on the ground but would go way out of his way to avoid doing so against a guy like Carwin. I mean, wasn't it Silva who brought the fight to the ground against Henderson in the 2nd round? Doesn't that alone show how different his strategy was against Henderson than it would be against Carwin?
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Silva would be dumped on his head.
You've said this multiple times now, and its really nothing more than hyperbolic words. Its not convincing me of anything.
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Carwin could indeed grab onto Silva easily.
LOL@ easily. Ah yea, so because quicker lighter fighters(who Silva doesn't fear as much on the ground) got Silva to the ground, surely Carwin will as well.....still not following this logic, man.
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You're acting like Silva's right hand is a nuclear ****ing guided missile. It's a fist. It can miss and he hasn't exactly been on a KO spree.
He has the most accurate and effective standup of any fighter in the world. Of course he "can" miss, but he lands an absurd number of his punches thrown.
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Maia spent a good deal of their fight lunging at him wildly and he didn't KO Maia.
He didn't KO Maia because he employed a no risk gameplan. Weren't you the one saying a few weeks ago that Silva could've easily KOed Maia if he wanted to?
But I'm glad you brought up Maia....here was a fight where everyone knew Maia's only chance was to take it to the ground. And he didn't even come close.
In his most recent fight, against an opponent who clearly posed a threat to Silva on the ground, Silva's TDD was phenomenal. Isn't that more telling that earlier fights in which Silva may or may not have truly been bothered by going to the ground?
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I really get the feeling Assani has never done anything remotely involving wrestling.
Try again.
I wrestled in HS. I took a few months of private ju jitsu lessons, but my instructor moved away and I never did pursue it....only knew basic guard, arm bar, mount, etc. type stuff. I've always been quite quick for my size(205 lbs right now), as I was even able to play DII guard on a basketball team despite being pretty short and stocky looking.
I also played o-line/TE in HS football, and the leverage concepts there can carry over to wrestling a bit.