Did Silva's loss to Mark Hunt change your opinion of him as a fighter?
If you feel the decision was incorrect, feel free to mention it but try not to make that the focus here. There's lots of "Silva got screwed" threads.
The bottom line was even if you don't think he lost, he was in more trouble in this fight then in any fight in PRIDE before.
Personally, the fight didn't alter my Wandy nut-hugging at all. Hunt's a crazy handfull for most HW's in MMA, excluding the top two or three. The fact that Wandy couldn't beat him giving up 70pds is cool with me.
The fact that he lost to Hunt means nothing except he can lose outside his weight class. Where does it end? Do we have Randy fight Sumo wrestlers next?
The only detail that sticks out in my mind is that Yoshida was able to submit Hunt, because of his gameplan. Silva has as much ground skill as Yoshida, so he should have been able to submit Hunt too.
However, it doesn't change my opinion of what a badass Silva is. I just think he should have changed his mindset - in the 3rd round if not before.
it was good to see Silva use his noggin a bit instead of the usual. I respect him even more after that fight. Mark Hunt is a dangerous man. Even though I am a Silva jock rider, props to the big man.
"Silva has as much ground skill as Yoshida, so he should have been able to submit Hunt too."
Try not to forget that up until a few days before the event, Wand thought he was fighting a guy that A) He owns, B) has his strengths in the exact opposite area of Hunt and C) weighs about 80lbs less than Hunt.
He came into this fight and everything was pretty much the opposite of what he was actually training for. He wasn't the bigger fighter, wasn't facing a guy he wanted to stay standing with, and wasn't facing someone he's fought before.
All that stuff changed with less than even two weeks for Wand to make adjustments, and if your opinion of him changed, then you were probably someone who thought Wand was God. He's not God. He's just a badass. A badass who took the fight on short notice, against a world class striker who's never been kayoed. I can't really think of any other top guys that would have agreed to that fight (aside from maybe Randy, and at Randy's age, it would have been an even worse idea)on such short notice.
Silva is still the man in his division IMO, and if there were room (time wise) for a rematch in which Silva was trained to face Hunt specifically, I think the outcome would be very different.
Tony - I agree - I'm not trying to take anything away from Silva, just would have liked to see a little bit different behavior on the ground. He was going for ground and pound (and sometimes stomp) when he might have been better off working for subs.
I give Silva all the credit in the world for taking this fight. There are definitely a lot of guys who rightfully would have declined on such short notice.
I don't think Silva is able to beat Hunt on anything other than a decision. I think Hunt has gotten sufficiently savvy at escaping submission attemtps, combined with his strength is just too difficult for any LHW. Yoshida was his first outing at this, and he's gotten better. I've seen more sophisticated escapes from Hunt than I have from a lot of BJJ guys.
I'm with Baja - Wandy probably could have submitted him, but he knew what the fans wanted to see, and gave it his all. Isn't this really all we can ask?
A loss to Hunt doesn't diminish Wand in the least IMO. Now a loss to Matsui would make me think maybe he's on the downside but to go in there and bang with that guy... not at all. He probably should've tried a different game plan but what do I know?
I was impressed with his skill. But I always thought of him as a "Kill or be Killed" fighter and his lay and pray strategy at the end of the fight didn't really bear that out. I thought for sure he'd sit up and try to deliver some hard shots on Hunt at the end or at least try a submission, but he just lay there and patted him with punches that wouldn't even hurt me, waiting for time to run out.
There's no shame in losing to a fighter 60 lbs bigger than you, but I always thought Silva was about the "decisive" win and I guess he's made me lose some respect in that department.
On the other side, his wrestling was even better that I thought it was and he took Hunt down at will in the first round. His breadth of skill is amazing and he impressed me a great deal in that department.
Hunt tried to deliver big strikes at the risk of being taken down and as such he displayed much more killer instinct. He impressed me with his heart as well as his skill.