Contributor: Ben Kohn
It has been one hell of a wait for Anderson Silva’s next title defense but it is finally here. After requesting fights with Georges St. Pierre, Roy Jones Jr, Cung Le, Luke Rockhold, Thor, the Pope, and Captain Crunch, Anderson Silva will finally fight against the biggest Middleweight prospect in years, Chris Weidman. This fight has been something hardcore MMA fans have salivated for and think will be the toughest test to date for Anderson. Anderson has literally become an MMA god; seen as virtually unbeatable, similar to Fedor and his aura of invincibility during his 10 year unbeaten run. Chris on the other hand presents all the challenges Chael did, but much more well-rounded. He is bigger, stronger, faster, younger, and has much better BJJ to go along with his incredible wrestling. His striking is also much more developed than Chaels. Weidman is facing a serious test in King Anderson but he just may be the one to overthrow him and claim the Iron Throne of Westeros.
Anderson’s reign over the UFC Middleweight division began on October 14th, 2006. At 2:59 of the very first round, Anderson kneed Rich Franklin into oblivion and became the UFC Middleweight champion. Since that day, Anderson has defended his title a record 10 times and he also holds the record for most consecutive wins, never losing in the UFC, at 16. Over the past 7 years, Anderson has built a reputation and aura about him that defeats many of his opponents before they ever step in the cage with him. The ease with which he toys with top Middleweights (along with some Light Heavyweights) has put him on a pedestal that many believe he will never drop from until he retires. The fact that he has accomplished all of this and is 38 years old is absolutely mind boggling to say the least. The sheer beauty and skill with which he dispatches his opponents is utterly breathtaking and something every MMA fan looks forward to and thinks when they watch him fight; what is he going to do next? Anderson is truly the greatest mixed martial artist to date and beating Chris Weidman would just be icing on the GOAT cake.
Chris Weidman is an undefeated prospect who is 9-0 overall with 5 of those wins coming in the UFC. His wins are equally split with 3 wins by submission, 3 by (T)KO, and 3 by decision. He has wins over 2 top 10 Middlweight fighters in Mark Munoz and Demian Maia (who was a top 10 Middleweight at the time of their fight). Although he will have been out for nearly a year since his last fight due to injuries, the hype surrounding him has only increased as the fight grows nearer. Chris is considered the Jon Jones of the Middleweight division by many. A young, hungry, and immensely skillful prospect with blue-chip wrestling and a striking game that continues to show improvement in leaps and bounds with every fight he has. Throw in a brown belt from Matt Serra and you have one hell of a well-rounded and dangerous fighter. The ease with which he dispatched then ranked #3 Munoz in a complete destruction in which Mark landed 1, that’s right, just 1 significant strike the entire fight and you can kind of gain a picture as to why this fight is so damn exciting for many fans. Chris has shown an extremely high level of confidence and truly believes he will be the one to dethrone Anderson while Anderson is being himself as always, toying with the media, Dana, Weidman, and the fans because he is Anderson Silva and he does whatever the hell he wants to. This is the most excited I have been for a fight since the Anderson vs. Sonnen rematch and I have a feeling we are going to see something amazing come July 6th.
Normally, I would break down the individual skill so of the fighters in order to compare and decide who is the better striker, grappler, etc. In this fight, it is completely unnecessary as you could easily on your own figure it out but let me make it clear for those who don’t already know. Anderson Silva is the best striker in Mixed Martial Arts today and possibly of all time. Chris Weidman is a smart guy and will most likely not stay on the feet any longer than he has to. Chris also clearly has the superior grappling skills and will most definitely attempt to use them as soon as he possibly can. What I will do in this breakdown is list through the attributes of each fighter and how they like to use their various techniques and then match up how and choose who will win based off their various usages of said skills.
Anderson Silva: Anderson Silva is truly amazing to behold on the feet. He uses his incredible timing and accuracy to land devastating punches, kicks, knees, and elbows to his opponents and will occasionally go matrix mode and destroying his opponents in ways previously thought impossible. But how is it that Silva, who is obviously better than every single one of his opponents on the feet, manages to stay on the feet against much better grapplers? Silva is a master of managing distance on the feet (on the ground as well) and this increases his ability to stay away from wrestlers shots and keep the fight where he wants it. Anderson is a natural right-handed fighter but generally will fight southpaw, although he does switch between southpaw and orthodox mid-strikes. The reason for this is that most fighters he faces will fight out of the orthodox position. When a southpaw fights an orthodox fighter, you have what is called “open-guard” in striking stances. The two fighters will be mirror images of each other with both of their leads on the same side as opposed to orthodox where everything is on the opposite side. This creates a large open space between the two fighters and Anderson uses this distance to keep the opposing fighter from shooting double legs in on him because Anderson’s rear leg is so far away. By limiting his opponent to mostly single-leg takedowns, Anderson stays on the feet and works his magic.
Anderson’s primarily a counter-striker and will often be completely inactive as he waits for his opponent to engage, throwing a few single-strikes here and there. The only real notable exception was his fight with Forrest Griffin (which shows how effective he can be moving forward, albeit against a slow, non-wrestler). Against most fighters however, he will use various front and low roundhouse kicks to the knee and calf in order to both, keep his opponents at a distance, and to score points on the judges’ scorecards. The reason why Anderson kicks the calves of his opponent as opposed to the thigh is because it is nearly impossible for whoever his opponent is to catch the leg on such a low kick. Anderson here shows how intelligent a fighter he is by recognizing he can damage and score points with very little threat of retaliation. Another signature set of moves Anderson will use is back-stepping punches. Anderson, as a counter-striker, tends to be the one moving back a lot in his fights. The fact that he is able to knock out iron-chinned Chris Leben with punches while moving backwards, KO Griffin with a jab while moving back, and knock down Okami as well shows just how damn good Silva is while moving back. Silva’s ungodly reflexes and timing coupled with his accuracy make him as deadly an offensive fighter as there is today. What makes Silva such a hellish matchup though is his defensive capabilities. His use of head movement, shoulder rolls, and angles make him nearly impossible to hit on the feet unless he lets you. Throw in the fact that he has an iron chin and you’ve got yourself the single greatest striker in MMA history.
We have covered just the smallest bits of Silva’s striking greatness but let’s move on to his grappling and clinch skills. Silva in 
the clinch is a nightmare plain and simple. He is a master of the double collar tie (thai plum) and fires off knees from that position with ruthless efficiency. He also uses extremely effective shoulder shrug strikes that actually hurt Bonnar in their fight. The clinch, where Weidman executes some of his best takedowns, is somewhere that you don’t want to be against Silva.
Silva on the ground is very interesting. On top, he is a killer, raining down strikes, preferably from the half guard while standing until the referee steps in to mercifully rescue his opponents. On bottom though, Silva is perfectly content to lock up his opponent and ride out the round or get a referee standup. Silva’s mastery of distance and control saves him from taking too much damage on the ground and his clearly passive, yet effective, guard is really almost completely geared towards….stalling. Silva will actively stall and hold his opponent down, sometimes even locking a body triangle from the bottom, preferring to press pause during the match almost and restart on the feet. The one thing Silva does extremely well offensively from the bottom is striking. He has actually hurt fighters from the guard (Sonnen) and has lethal kicks (Lutter, Okami). All around, Anderson is just a nightmare to fight plain and simple and Weidman will somehow have to figure a way to beat this god of the octagon.
Chris Weidman has proven to be one of the best grapplers in the Middleweight division with his absolute shellacking of guys like Tom Lawlor and Mark Munoz. Throw in the Demian Maia wanted no part of Weidman on the ground and you have a legitimate world class ground fighter. Weidman’s entire game is centered on getting the fight to the mat and either pounding his opponent out or submitting him. His striking, while vastly improved, is used as a transitional tool in order to apply his stellar ground game. Despite everyone replaying the Munoz fight in their heads and thinking only of the elbow, Weidman spent most of the fight beating the hell out of Munoz and completely outgrappling the former D1 wrestling champion. The picture perfect elbow was just icing on the cake and sealed the book on the fact that Chris Weidman is the biggest threat Anderson Silva has faced to date. His wrestling skills combined with powerful ground and pound and serious submission prowess are the biggest threat Anderson will have faced and the hype train is not just built on a house of cards, but a solid foundation littered with the bodies of his past opponents.
Weidman’s standup has really improved a lot but still really is used to beautifully transition from standing to grappling. Weidman while on the fringe tends to favor long rear leg roundhouse kicks at various levels. When he wants to close the distance though, he will do so using his right hand to bring himself closer to his opponent as a replacement for the wrestlers “penetrating step”. This allows him to get much closer to his opponent and get under their hips giving him the necessary drive to complete his beautiful and favored single-leg takedowns. A perfect example of this was in his fight with Maia where he threw the straight right to get in closer, used a left hook while ducking down and grappling a hold of Maia’s leg before completing the takedown. A wonderful set up sequence that he also used against Mark Munoz (not necessarily the left hook but the right hand to penetrate).
The real threat to Silva though is when Weidman gets on top of you. He is absolutely relentless with his constant transitions and smothering top control. His guard-passing skills are top notch and he is phenomenal from the front headlock position. Although seen a lot in wrestling, many wrestlers don’t use this position much but Weidman not only uses it for control, he actively searches for submissions such as his seemingly favorite choke, the D’arce. He also shows that he is submission minded even in striking phases of combat such as when he snapped up a guillotine mid-exchange against Jesse Bongfeldt.
On many forums you will hear people talk about how Chris Weidman is Chael Sonnen 2.0. Well to my adoring fans reading this, that is not true. Chris Weidman is a very different fighter than Chael and that is a good thing. Chael, while using similar entries, relies on a very aggressive and nonstop takedown attack. Chris on the other hand is able to use his striking to blend fluidly into his takedowns and submission game. Chris also actually has a very damn good submission game. This is a man who with only a few years of BJJ experience went the distance with ANDRE GALVAO! For those of you who don’t know, Andre Galvao is among the best BJJ practitioners in the world today.
Here comes the million dollar question. Come fight night, how will this match really play out. Well fight fans; this will go one of two ways. Either Silva will show everyone once again why he is the GOAT and slaughter the far less experienced Weidman (who happens to be coming off a major injury layoff) and retaining his title or Weidman will show the world that he is for real and put up one hell of a fight, possibly shocking the world with a win. Notice how I said either Silva dominates, or Weidman makes it competitive. Here’s the thing, Weidman has never faced any fighter with the experience, or striking ability near Silva’s level. Think about who he destroyed in Munoz. Munoz was outstruck by Demian Maia…think about that for a second, K-1 Maia outstruck Munoz. Weidman has literally no chance on the feet period and unless he can show Silva that getting him down can and will happen, Silva will dismantle the young prospect. My final prediction, Silva by KO 2.
-Ben can be reached at [email protected] or @agentbenten.
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