This Spider Would Get Squashed at Higher Weight Classes

I’m going to try to not water this article down with pointless opinions, rather I’m going to get straight to the point: Anderson Silva would get destroyed against the top competition at higher weight classes.

I can’t stand seeing article-after-article about how Silva’s next fight will be Mir or Evans or Carwin or Rampage.  The fact is Silva would get handled, relatively easily, against a well-rounded MMA fighter at a higher weight class. 

People will immediately jump in and say, “Well he beat Forest in less than a round, and Forest was a former LHW champion and current contender."  Yeah, he did, but Forest isn’t exactly the stand-up fighter people think he is. 

While he’s one of my favorite fighters to watch, it isn’t because of his high skill level.  It’s because he stands and fights, which is entertaining to watch.  The only problem with Forest is that for a guy that stands and throws, he has almost no head movement.  For a legit striker like Silva, this was a perfect fight to take.  He was able to use his pin-point striking accuracy to break a non-moving target (Forest’s head).

You honestly think against a fighter as slick as Machida, the current LHW top dog, Silva would be able to land strike after strike and walk out with the belt?  No way. 

He wouldn’t even be able to hang with Evans, and that’s assuming Evan’s wouldn’t have him on the ground at will (which he would).  I’m sure he could handle some of the one-dimensional gateway fighters of the LHW division, but you’re insane if you think he stands an actual chance against the top of the light heavies. 

Here’s another opinion to back up my point: GSP DOMINATED Penn.  Maybe five or 10 years ago a fighter could jump a weight class and beat the champ, but because the top fighters are so well-rounded in multiple disciplines no fighter will be able to jump up a weight class again and take the belt. 

GSP is the easiest example to use here.  He’s great on his feet and on the ground.  When Penn, one of the best pound-for-pound fighters in the world, came up to 170 for a scrap he got beat.  Bad.  GSP was able to do whatever he wanted to do in that fight.  Penn quit.  I’m not saying Silva would quit in the middle of a fight, but there’s no way he finishes the fight against a well-rounder, bigger opponent with his hand raised.

I’m not even going to go into too much detail about Silva verses a heavyweight.  He’d get crushed, end of story.  I don’t even think he’d be able to hang with the gatekeepers of the heavyweight division.  Even if he committed to the division and put on weight he’d lose.  Look at Mir for an example here.  Guy gets pounded by Brock and suddenly shows up looking like he lived in the weight room for six months.  Mir, meet Shane Carwin. 

So please, let’s not keep talking about Silva taking on the best at heavier weight classes.   Let’s see him get through Belfort, Sonnen, and Shields first.  It’s not his fault there are almost no well-rounded fighters at 185, but let’s see him fight the ones that are there first before letting him move up.