Dana White Talks Fedor Emelianenko and Anderson Silva vs. George St. Pierre

It seemed like that’s where you were going with your post. If not ignore the following screed. If so, it’s worth reading.

It’s never been clear to me why people believe Silva is so much larger “naturally” (whatever that means) than GSP, which seems to me a fair implication of your post: you compare GSP “a 170 pounder” to Silva “a guy who has had success at 205”. Silva has stated that on fight night he’s not cutting any weight, which means, when fighting MW, he’s about 185, and against leites he may have been smaller, since he weighed in at 182. GSP on fight night, when fighting WW, is 185. GSP in the off season is a shredded 195 lb. After a healthy diet of big macs and snickers bars Silva is a flabby 220.

The Silva is huge myth was probably started by Joe Rogan during the Griffin fight, and then unthinkingly reinforced by various MMA journalists and bloggers. Well, looks are deceiving since Silva was reported to have been about 210 during that fight, and to be honest he looked pretty soft to me.

GSP has stated that if the fight took place at MW he would take time off to bulk up. I don’t think it would take him that long given that he’s now walking around at a ripped 195 lb in the off season and wouldn’t probably want to be cutting much more than 15 lbs.

Thus, even if GSP and Silva fought at MW, Silva would not have an actual weight advantage, since he doesn’t cut any weight, unless of course he started doing so for that fight, which seems unlikely given that he hasn’t done so in the past. In fact Silva would likely be at between a 10 and 15 lb disadvantage since GSP would be cutting weight.

To forestall the next raft of objections — The objections: “It doesn’t matter that GSP would actually be bigger on fight night: Silva is taller and has longer limbs and could more easily get up to 225 and has old man strength and his frame is bigger so his actual skeleton is larger and his tendons are stronger (I’m making shit up here but I’m trying to do my best to make this position seem credible)”

Response: I find it highly unlikely that Silva would actually be “stronger” than GSP (as a result of his “natural” size advantage). 1. I’d be willing to be a lot of money Silva would lose a lifting / squatting competition with GSP. GSP does pull ups for reps after gruelling grappling sessions with 90 lbs of resistance added for good measure. That is preposterous. Nothing about Silva makes me think he’s not an outstanding athlete; nothing, on the other hand, makes me think he’s abnormally strong either. 2. GSP’s muscular endurance (+ VO2 max) has got to be better than Silva’s. GSP can grapple for seemingly forever and only be breathing mildly heavy at the end of the session. Given how much he wrestles and trains BJJ (and the fact that he never looks very tired), this isn’t surprising. Silva may be able to grapple for hours and not tire and sacrifice form, although I’ve never heard such reports, but he looked to me a bit winded after extremely minimal output against Maia. 3. Explosive strength — In generaly, Silva doesn’t seem to have the “explosiveness” (which I’m using to mean a combination of acceleration + speed + power) GSP does as demonstrated by his double leg take downs. This is slightly unfair to Silva since he’s not a wrestler, but I haven’t seen much from Silva to indicate that he has this sort of strength. For instance, people with this sort of strength can usually power their way out of bad positions (e.g., side control, mount) and Silva’s never been that guy.

Thus, even if “naturally” bigger people generally are “stronger” than their diminutive foes, other things equal, that would not seem to be the case here.

In terms of reach, GSP’s reach is 76" and Anderson’s is 77"; that’s pretty close. Anderson is about 4" taller however, which means GSP’s punches need to travel at an upward angle to hit Silva in the face and adds to Anderson’s slight reach advantage. Since GSP’s reach is longer than Shogun’s (for example), however, I’m going to say that this small reach disadvantage, by itself, at least won’t spell his doom.

In sum, I think that saying GSP will be in trouble against Silva because Silva is “naturally” bigger is wrong. GSP could come in at 185 and Silva at 225 and I don’t think it would make much of a difference. GSP, to win, would need to take the fight to the ground; something he’ll have no trouble doing as long as he doesn’t get knocked out (which with Silva is a realistic possibility).