mad?

C-Vigg,

you're wrong.

hemad.jpg

wrong about what?
people turn in to complete ******s when they talk about steroids?
def not wrong about that
wrong that he didn't take hgh?
not wrong about that either.

Wasn't much sketchy about it at all? We read about different steroid hearings then IMO.

edit: And you edited your post so nvmd.

not nearly as laughable as you just assumed he was on HGH and not a steroid that was doctor recommended that he even tried to clear with the athletic commission while he was taking it

just at least read past a headline once is all

facts are there, it was a drug he tried to clear before he took. he prob took too much of it.

i was just mainly saying it's ridiculous someone just assumed he took HGH

anyway, point being that whatever he took had little bearing on why he was dominating anderson in that fight

would be silly to think most all elite MMA fighters aren't taking PEDs

lol you believe his story from the hearing? lol

His doc was a quack, and his story total BS. He testified a bunch of **** about what he was told and why he thought he could cheat and it has since become clear he was just fos.

http://www.bloodyelbow.com/2010/12/1...hael-sonnen-in

Seriously man, don't just believe a cheat/scumbag/criminal lol.

One born every minute.

Even if all of this is true (I have no idea either way as I didn't follow the news about him), I think it's a stretch to say his PED helped him a ton against Silva. He still had to make weight and he's still a dominant wrestler without the drugs.

He declared what he was taking before the fight is all I'm saying, and it wasn't HGH or anything similar. He was obviously taking PEDs for personal athletic gain and he obviously knew he wasn't supposed to.

It still had little to do with why he was dominating that fight, Silva has had trouble with wrestlers holding him down. If you want to attribute the domination to steroids, then here's a shocking tip: Silva is likely on them too

Cvig is just plain hating.

agreed completely. To think otherwise would be incredibly naive imo.



But then you totally buy Sonnen's story??? Thats just as naive imo. I think its incredibly likely that Sonnen totally knew what he was doing, knew that it was illegal, and tried to get away with it anyway.

None of us really know how much the steroids helped Sonnen in that fight. Nor do any of us know how much Silva's injury hurt him in that fight.

What we do know is that those two factors contributed to some degree and Silva was still able to win the fight. To me, that makes Silva look even more unbeatable. Overall though, what seems to happen is that people adopt a certain viewpoint and then cling to that viewpoint even though the truth is that none of us have any real insight into how much those 2 factors helped Sonnen.

I don't buy his story at all. I thought I made that clear. I just stated the fact that he did tell the athletic commish what he was taking. His motives and methods are clearly suspicious and he was obviously cheating per the rules.

I just said he didn't take HGH or anything close, which he didn't, and that he stated what he was taking to the commission, which he did. Dunno what's to disagree with.

I disagree with the certainty you seem to have when you make this statement:



I don't think you nor I have any clue on just how much of a factor it was.

Meh, fighting with injuries is pretty common. It could have been as simple as he had a bad performance and mentioned something that nagged him. Also assuming Anderson probably takes some form of PEDs, I don't think it's unfair to just rate that fight as it was, Silva showing poor wrestling and not knowing how to get a good wrestler off the top of him (as he's shown he can't do in the past). Then choking out that good wrestler with a basic choke because Sonnen has horrid submission defense (as he's shown in the past)

I'm not dismissing the fact Sonnen cheated. He clearly did. I just think people are using that fact as an excuse for Spider instead of properly critiquing a major weakness and exploitable part of his game.

I'm making educated guesses based on their actual fight performances in the past, seems like the best way of figuring it out to me.

Yes fighting with injuries is common. But surely you'd agree that "having an injury" can mean anything from "I have a minor ache that I'll completely forget about when the fight starts" to "I have a legit injury that almost caused me to have to miss the fight." Do any of us have any clue where on that scale Silva's injury was?


I admit that I'm a Silva fan, so I could be biased. But when I look at Silva's last 5 fights(we could go back further if you wanted, I arbitrarily picked 5):


vs Belfort: 1st round KO, took no punishment

vs Sonnen: major struggle, lost first 4 rounds, squeaked out a win at the last minute

vs Maia: Total domination, although it was boring, took no punishment at all

vs Griffin: Total domination, took no punishment at all

vs Leites: I've never seen this fight, but based upon wiki and the judge's scorecards I think it was quite boring but Silva won soundly....feel free to correct me if I'm wrong on this one



So we have 4 dominating performances and 1 close win. In the 4 dominating performances, there aren't a ton of unknown factors or claims that would cause us to have to re-evaluate what we just saw. But in the 1 close one, we have 2 things which definitely could've had a huge impact, but we can't say anything definitively. Considering that the one outlier is the one which had these 2 unknown factors, do you not think its a possibility that was the fluke and that the other fights were more truly indicative of his abilities?

+1 to C-Vig

Just because we can't know for sure just how much affect it had, doesn't mean we can't speculate.

EDIT: Assuming we're talking about the PED factor. Nobody knows anything about Silva's injury.

Where did I say Silva hasn't been dominant? Why are you refusing to acknowledge that he struggles with a good wrestler? You're assuming it's an outlier instead of really looking @ his fights, which is awful analysis. That or you just haven't seen most of his fights.

You just picked his last 5 fights. Silva is the GOAT of all time so I'm nitpicking, but look @ rounds he's lost in his career.

Round 1 vs Henderson, Round 1 vs Lutter, Rounds 1-4 vs Sonnen. Notice a trend? He spent the round on bottom and couldn't get up. In fact, can you name a time he's ever gotten up from bottom position?

This is an issue versus GSP because, guess what, GSP is very good at takedowns and holding guys down.

There's a very clear way GSP can beat Anderson. (and vice-versa) And GSP isn't gonna **** up and get triangled either. But if GSP gets Anderson on his back and takes him down as easily as Chael was, Anderson will lose.

GSP had a lot of trouble holding Koscheck down in the last fight fwiw. Obviously Kos is a much better wrestler than Anderson, but given Anderson's great BJJ and size advantage, I don't think it's a certainty that GSP will be able to hold him down.

Koscheck is ridiculously hard to keep down though. GSP won't be that far off size wise by fight time. Roger Gracie will probably have GSP a 18th degree red belt in BJJ by Silva fight

I think Silva will be prepared and will rightfully be a favorite. But he shouldn't be a big one and just pointing out what I think is a clear way he loses the fight.

In short, I agree with this:

"he struggles with a good wrestler"

if you'll admit that "struggles" is a bit of an overstatement since he won those fights


But I"m not ready to draw conclusions based upon the Sonnen fight due to those unknown factors. So when you say:

"But if GSP gets Anderson on his back and takes him down as easily as Chael was, Anderson will lose"

I feel the need to again remind you that there were two unknown factors contributing to Chael taking him down so easily.



Thats basically the jist of our disagreement. The only other thing I'd point out is that dominating poor/mediocre competition is indeed indicative of the ability to fare well against top competition....its like in the NFL every year when one team will start out by dominating a bunch of bad teams and people will always say "But they haven't played anyone yet!!", and then I'll point out that while they haven't played anyone yet, the fact that they dominated the bad teams gives us reason to think that they'd do ok against better competition.....well Silva made it look ridiculously easy when guys like Maia tried to shoot in on him. Obviously Maia's shot isn't as good as GSP's or Sonnen's, and I"m not saying that. But the fact that Silva handled Maia's shot so easily does show some wrestling skills that you aren't acknowledging imo.

Yeah I'm underestimating his wrestling probably just because he's gonna have to face the arguable best wrestler in all MMA.

I'd also argue that GSP has an easier way to lose this fight, don't think he can handle a fight with Anderson on the feet for very long at all