Are you asking me if Chris fought prime Silva in their first fight?
Hard work and perserverance. USADA is a big reason why Bisping is the champ. I would say Stann or Belcher are his biggest wins outside of what you said. All im saying is its very easy to discredit fighters wins. A win is a win regardless of how you feel and the win is the only thing that should count.
Yes. Because its easy to say a guy isnt in there prime when they lose a fight, when in reality its because they fought a better fighter.
Judson - Kohler was an early stoppage.
Well it isn't really. Because Bisping beating Silva in 2015 is not the same as him beating a Silva that had 2006 form.
Fighters DO decline/slow down etc, so is it a great name to have on the resume? Yeah. Is it a very past prime version? Yeah.
Not really. Imo prime Anderson is the one who kicked Vitors face off. GSP was still in his prime when Serra knocked him out. He came back and continued his reign with a 12 fight win streak, 9 of those title fights.
I'm sure you and I could compile a solid list of fights where the victor wasn't simply better but the loser wasn't his usual self or there was some fuckery like a foul or ref blunder.
It's a first time off his roids Silva. Silva's whole legacy is tainted. He had one moment of success against Bisping and that was when Bisping was distracted, which was his own fault - yet is still pertinent.
Anderson was 31 when he entered the UFC, and he hadn't had some illustrius career, but after that goes through a career renaissance in his mid to late 30s. Then he gets popped for steroids. If Bisping's whole career had been under USADA he's likely been the champ for much longer.
Add in any champs name where you said Bisping and the "if" game is a nice sell.
I agree on your assumption about AS juicing for a while but he still beat the other users like Vitor, Hendo, Bonnar and so on while in their prime So did GSP.
If PEDs were really as amazing as everyone else wants to believe then Übereem, Ian Freeman and Barnett wld be 50-0.
If PEDs aren't helpful why do they use them? No one is suggesting that they make average fighters great, such as Ian Freeman, or that they can fix heart like Ubereem. Yet, look at Barnett, they can obviously take a very technical fighter and give him just enough edge to get you to the championship, if other conditions are right.
Recovery more than anything. Training MULTIPLE TIMES PER DAY and you're natty? Man, that's got to hurt.
Strawman
The most used excuse for Bispings short comings are that he fought and lost to guys on PEDs. I'm saying far too much value is put into that. When the playing field is leveled like Anderson vs Vitor, Sonnen, Bonnar and Hendo he still won in his prime against those guys who were also at the top of their game. This argument started by me saying Mike beating that version of Silva isn't too special given his downfall. Sure we can blame it all on the assumption he's been using forever to make Mike's case look better but it could be in addition to many other factors which I've listed above. (age, horrific injury, lay off, losing streak...)
Anyone making a case for Mike being anywhere near a GOAT contender has their plea riddled with "only if, woulda, coulda, shoulda, USADA..." Compared that to a resume like GSP where just his stats alone blow away the out.led up Bisping case and it's a no brainier.
I'm doing my best not to shit all over Mike but some of you guys aren't making it easy. Fighting guys in their mid 40s on their retirement fight or WWs with 3+ years off coming out of retirement isn't helping whatever legacy he wants to have. He's a very talented durable guy and imo he will be remembered most for championing MMA in his part of the world and his talk.
I agree, Silva was the best amongst the juicers. Bisping is/was the best amongst the clean fighters. I'm not saying Bisping is the GOAT in any weightclass, that's obviously between GSP, Fedor, and Conor, but he is the GOAT clean middleweight.
Lmao, recovery! Good one. They do far more than just recovery, but even if it was just recovery just that gives an unfair advantage by allowing more repetitions of technique which produces better performances. Combined with that they make you more confident, stronger, faster, and produce better endurance, depending on the PED used. Most of these guys were on all the PEDs, just ask Chael.
