The Double Leg Breakdown 04.12.08: Who Can Beat Anderson Silva?

Posted by Don Nguyen on 04.12.2008

Even Superman had a weakness...

Hello all, and welcome to Double Leg Breakdown. Like many of you I'm sure, I find myself spending entirely too much of my day thinking about and analyzing MMA. Part of the fun of being a fight fan is it gives us all something to speculate about and intellectualize. How will a fight play out? What is this fighter's strength? Will this rookie someday be the champ? Does one fighter have another fighter's number? The Double Leg Breakdown is my weekly musing on the world of MMA that I hope will provoke thought and discussion. I welcome your feedback but please keep it thoughtful, level-headed and intelligent. So without further ado...

WHO CAN BEAT ANDERSON SILVA?

After watching Anderson Silva decimate the man who was more or less dubbed the antidote to the most vicious striker MMA has ever seen, it's hard to imagine anyone dethroning him any time in the near future. Will this man dominate the division until he retires? Is there anyone in MMA right now who has the ability to stop Silva from cleaning out the division and leaving no interesting challengers?



Anderson Silva is the latest successor to a lineage of "unbeatable fighters" that includes the likes of Chuck Liddell and Matt Hughes; fighters who were so dominant in their time that they left MMA fans and pundits alike scratching their heads trying to figure out what qualities a fighter would have to have to beat them.

Joe Silva threw grappler after wrestler after grappler at Chuck, and time after time I would find myself writing Chuck off only to lose my shirt betting against him. It wasn't until Chuck was bested at his own game when Rampage outstruck him that he was finally dethroned.

Matt Hughes dominated his division solely on his wrestling strength for years. It wasn't until he went up against an even more dominant wrestler in Georges St. Pierre that his reign would come to an end.

So back to my initial question: Who can beat Anderson Silva? My answer: Yushin Okami. Just kidding. My answer is no one who is currently in the UFC (unless Silva moves up to 205, which will never happen while his Black House homie Lyoto Machida is fighting in the UFC at that weight class).

Since winning the title, he has been pitted against a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt in Travis Lutter, strong wrestler and grappler in Nate Marquardt, and an Olympic Greco-Roman Wrestler in Dan Henderson. With each fight, the buzz was that each challenger respectively had the necessary skillset to beat the champ. It seemed logical that it would be a wrestler who would finally beat him (ask Matt Hughes). One would reason that in order to neutralize Silva's striking, one must get the fight to the ground, control him once there and either ground and pound out a TKO or grind out a decision. Seemed reasonable enough. But as we know now this tactic was fundamentally flawed.

First of all, Silva's chin has been tested and has been proven to be made of Adamantium. I don't see anyone KO'ing him on the ground. Dan Henderson's hammerfists didn't seem to phase him at all. Second, his submission defense is superb and he has a fantastic guard. With his long legs, he can just about body triangle any middleweight out there. It's no coincidence that we have seen him on his back several of his fights, but no one has been able to remotely capitalize on this dominant position. His guard is so good, I don't think anyone will be ground and pounding him to a referee stoppage. If Hendo couldn't, no one can. Third, this tactic leaves the huge possibility that the fight will go the distance. In a title fight, this leaves at least 5 chances for Silva to knock you out on the feet, and when it comes to a guy like him, that is five chances too many. Finally, Silva is also a BJJ black belt, so getting submitted in his guard is always a possibility.

With all that said and done, I maintain that wrestling is Anderson Silva's weakness, but not in the way that most have believed it to be in his fights since becoming champion. Anderson Silva is weak at takedowns, and ultimately, I think this may be his downfall.

Is Anderson Silva the best striker in MMA right now? Without a doubt. Is he the best striker in the world? I don't think so. His skills are not good enough to make him a champion in Muay Thai, only an MMA champion. Someday a better striker will come along and will challenge Silva.

If a fighter like Georges St. Pierre were faced with this problem, with his well rounded skills, he would adapt and would bring the fight to the ground. This would be a good game plan against just about any striker out there who is not Silva.

Contrarily, if Silva were in a situation where he were outclassed on the feet, he would struggle with getting the fight to the ground due to his lack of wrestling skill. With some MMA training, a superior Muay Thai fighter would need only learn a enough takedown defense to keep the fight standing. This would eliminate any ground action. The fight would become a technical Muay Thai fight, and if Silva weren't knocked out, he would likely be outpointed. In this scenario, Anderson Silva is all of a sudden not invincible.

Styles make fights, but you need not look to a fighter with an opposing style to neutralize Anderson Silva.