Anderson silva! Muay Thai, boxing, karate, and kaparea mixed together with his tough chin and aggressiveness makes him the best striker to date. Look at the Daniel fight again, HE held back A LOT!
I'd definitely remove DJ. He's incredible because of his well-roundedness, similar to GSP. They weren't the top strikers out there. I'd take out a few others too. It's why I'm reluctant to put a guy like Stipe there too. He's good but his wrestling helps a bunch too.
Wonderboy, Barboza, Joanna, Aldo, Pettis are definitely in the discussion though. I think Yair Rodriguez will eventually be here too, as he is making Tae Kwon Do look pretty incredible right now. Valentina Shevchenko may be here one day too.
Silva only had two days notice, and he is likely past his prime. He's still the greatest striker in MMA history, possibly the greatest fighter period, but his time is over.
Wonderboy, if he continues on the path he is on, might take that number 1 spot though.
Last edited by StyleTime on Oct 29th, 2016 at 07:49 PM
To be honest I wasn't even thinking of female fighters when I made that list as I find them very hard to compare with male fighters, and I don't really watch them so can't say much. In general I do think that the talent level for women in combat sports in general is likely nowhere near what it is for men, if you just compare the sheer numbers of people that are attracted to combat sports for men and women respectively.
Can't say I agree regarding DJ. He's looked pretty incredible at times where he didn't even have much of a wrestling advantage or in fact was at a disadvantage - knocking out Benavidez and completely outclassing Dodson in his second fights against them, and clearly outstriking Cruz on the feet at a time where he was nowhere near as good as he is now (and I'd consider all three excellent strikers). He's one of the most athletic fighters in the UFC, which is something that's hugely important in striking, and he's so well rounded - he's very elusive, has great movement, strikes with all limbs and arguably has some of the best clinch striking we've ever seen in MMA. The way he can create space in the clinch and the speed at which he can unleash attacks from that position is unreal and he's so accurate and dangerous. The speed at which he can move in and out is insane and he can do it for all 25 minutes. He's also got this thing similar to people like Jon Jones where he's so creatve and unpredictable and has at times performed things inside the Octagon that we've never seen before. GSP was a pretty basic striker by comparison imo.
There's a difference in punching speed and BOXING ability between silva and wonderboy. But wonderboy is willing to take more risk when it comes to using kicks. That may change as his stand becomes more REFINED.
Fedor does have good boxing, he showed it in his fight with cro cop but he was still at a disadvantage because he was worried about cro cops kicks. Silva has better boxing then fedor, he keeps his hands up away from being hook shot, which was very effective against slower fighters but wouldn't work against someone like silva or cro cop. Remember his fight with Andre? The jab is key, until he tried to be "FLASHY"!
Silva actually has a half decent boxing record. I tell you who would have been considered the best striker if he hadn't got sent to prison. Lee Murray.
Silva evolved to become a better boxer than he was when was an amature. You can see the difference throughout his fighting career. He's a better boxer than fedor and cro cop with his over used left straight or right straight, I for got which stance he fights in. Silva will out box daniel Cormier, and he's a better boxer than fedor. (Better head movement and less reliant on the hook shots) Lee Murray will get dropped.
Well, the women's divisions have improved by leaps and bounds. I think they have ground to cover, but there are definitely standouts. Kevin Ross thinks pretty highly of Joanna and Shevchenko's Muay Thai, for example.
I'm sure you can predict my response, but I have to say it. I don't think Benavidez/Dodson are great strikers, comparatively speaking. Beating them just doesn't catapult him into the tier of Barboza/Silva/Wonderboy/Aldo/etc. DJ is probably p4p king right now, but I feel like there is a gap between him those other guys.
Well, Wonderboy's boxing has improved, but it's hard to say what is more important at this point. His karate style has taken him far, and guys like him are forcing us to reexamine our understanding of striking in MMA. I mean, 10 years ago, people couldn't fathom a guy like Wonderboy or MVP even existing in MMA, much less doing well.
Last edited by StyleTime on Nov 3rd, 2016 at 01:02 AM
You want to know the difference in striking? Watch silva vs Patrick cote again? SEE the difference in boxing and him. His jab is too good and he's just toying with him.
I agree that Anderson's boxing was good. I'm saying I'm not sure if his style was necessarily "better" than Wonderboy's . Wonderboy's sidekick is the best in mma, and it makes the jab a lower priority for him. He's constantly in kicking range, where as Anderson liked to box more.
Anderson constantly check leg kicks, the most effective is the leg kicks since ANYTHING higher will cause trouble for wonderboy, like the jab. It's quicker than a round house. And even though silva doesn't use high kicks or side kicks at all, he is good at using them to set up for knees. He puts fear in his opponent, forcing them to drop there heads for a knee. It always work, because he know when to use it (again look at the patrick Côte, bisping, or hendrson fight). It can only get worse for wonderboy. It can't go side by side. What I mean is if wonderboy does a side kick, silva will do a left straight, which is faster or a round house. Silvia's way is safer.
He'll have to take up Muai Thai and work on boxing for the majority of his time training with a partner similar to Bernard Hopkins (he needs to learn how to counter). His wrestling will cancel out silva's because silva can't be taken down if he doesn't want to. So he has potential. Give him a YEAR four times a day working on nothing but what I stated above and he can beat silva. Depending on the choices he makes, since silva is very smart when it comes to striking. He demonstrated it in his fight with Côte and henderson. Oh, and that other guy he knocked out by fooling him and the catching his leg, knocking him out!
One thing I will say regarding Anderson Silva is if you look back at his career, I don't think he generally faced a lot of great strikers. He looked incredible against guys that weren't really all that great imo, with the exception of Vitor Belfort, and while that victory was incredible, I'm not sure that's something he'd be able to replicate all that often, and Vitor Belfort while having been a very dangerous striker hasn't been the most technical, defensively adept nor the most consistent one throughout his career.
Wonderboy imo is far better at attacking from and controlling distance and is a lot more tricky with his attacks and disguising them. He's also much better at leading imo and practically as good of a counter striker, with greatly improved boxing (which looked great in the Hendricks fight as a good example).
If they were both in their prime and in the same weightclass, Anderson would struggle to get close to him, and would end up eating a lot of kicks imo.
So Daniel Cormier, Dan Henderson, forest griffin, nick diez, Chris Leban (he beat wrederlia silva don't know how to spell his last name), and rich franklin aren't good strikers? He made every body on that list look bad when fighting him. His fighting style is exceptional! Who needs to fight rashad or rampage when the STRUGGLE!
Yeah I would say Dan Henderson, Forrest, Leben and Rich Franklin aren't particularly good strikers. Leben's basically a brawler and Henderson is completely one-dimensional; Rich Franklin is the definition of basic and Forrest was a slow, predictable striker that was tailor made for Anderson's style. Henderson's striking success in MMA is in many ways a product of a poor level of striking and striking defence in MMA in general, particularly in previous eras of the sport which is where he was mainly successful, where someone like that with incredible power could get away with being one-dimensional and still prove to be a great knockout artist. Rich Franklin was champ when the skill level in MMA, particularly at MW, was really pedestrian by today's standards. Leben was never that great, and Forrest managed to overachieve and get a couple of really solid wins but generally wasn't really a worldbeater. Nick Diaz is small for MW and also in many ways a very limited striker (as is his brother, Nate), and Anderson really didn't look all that amazing in his victory over him (and that isn't even mentioning that he was on PEDs for that fight, not that I care to make much of a deal out of that as he was clearly past his prime anyway). Cormier basically wasn't really striking with him in their fight, was basically warming down after a fight he was clearly going to win and Anderson landed one really good kick on him; I think people were even surprised that he was able to hurt him at all (especially as it wasn't really characteristic of Anderson to hurt guys with those kinds of strikes), but generally I don't think you can really say a contest of striking even occured between Cormier and Silva, but rather that Cormier was choosing not to engage and had a lapse in concentration and ate a big kick to the body very soon before the fight ended.
I'd argue that someone like Rory MacDonald is a better striker than anyone Anderson faced, and Hendricks and even Ellenberger and Whittaker are practically as good as anyone Anderson defeated aside from Vitor, and he's got a fantastic record outside of MMA in kickboxing to boot where he's beaten top guys like Raymond Daniels.
Then what is rampage to Henderson? Or leban to wrederleia (don't know how to spell his name)? Or diez to FRANK to Chung lee? None of them come close to Anderson silva. And rich Franklin is an exceptional striker. How long did it take machida to take him out? And machida gets beat by Jon jones with ease who struggle in his fight Daniel. They'll all lose to Anderson with ease and all are good strikers. Yushin okami is a good striker, but all you get from silva is more toying around. What about sonen? Do you think anybody in the ufc could finish him as fast as silva? Hell no. (First fight he was holding back)
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Oct 29th, 2016 06:55 PM
