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Over the past few weeks regular readers have heard me gush praise over Anderson Silva's phenomenal stand up game over three volumes in anticipation of his rematch with the middleweight division's resident braggart,Chael Sonnen. In part 1 of my Analyzing Anderson series, I dissected Silva's wonderful counter jab versus Yushin Okami, in part 2 I laid out his counter right hook against Forrest Griffin, and in part 3 I divulged some of Anderson's entrances to the Thai Plumm against Rich Franklin. In this part of our series, with the Silva - Sonnen rematch just days away, I'm going to do something very dangerous and difficult - point out the weaknesses of Anderson's stand up game. There is no denying that Anderson Silva is perhaps the finest striker in MMA, and to find exploitable loopholes in his overall game is a hard thing to do, but he is human, and they are there.
Some of Silva's suspected weaknesses are discussed much more than others - the debate over Silva's submission defense, for instance, has been rehashed a thousand times. This is due to his two most notable losses coming by submission to Japanese journeymen. More recently, however, Silva has proven by submitting Travis Lutter that he can hang with Jiu Jitsu black belts on the ground, and while the idea of submitting Silva should not be ruled out, he is certainly not going to be submitted by a low quality submission fighter such as Chael Sonnen or Yushin Okami.
If Silva has proven himself such a difficult man to submit, why has the submission defense question been so overplayed? Almost entirely because most in the media are afraid to analyze the holes in the man's stand up, and indeed many in the community would not know how to begin doing so. The two losses on Anderson's record which came inside the distance (and weren't caused by a DQ) are very easy to grab on to. He was finished both times by submission, therefore his submission defense must be the problem. This logic is not suitable for analyzing the areas in which Anderson can be exploited. To really understand and pinpoint the loopholes in Silva's remarkable game it is necessary to actually analyze his fights and the evoluton of his style, instead of focusing attention on the numbers on his record.
Anderson Silva is an amazing fighter, one of the greatest of all time, and the fact that in so many bouts in the UFC we have only seen flashes of vulnerability only makes the task of analyzing his game objectively even harder. To understand Anderson's vulnerabilities we must go back to the beginnings of his career, when he was taken down often, and analyze how he changed this. We will discuss through this article how it was Anderson's change in tactics, not developments in his wrestling ability, that enabled Silva to keep fights standing against elite grapplers where before he was being taken down by journeymen. Silva's game has changed significantly over the years to be based off of a few strategic choices and moves.
We will not dwell on the submission defense argument in any great depth but rather on Anderson Silva's:
- Refusal to Lead
- Open Guard Takedown Defense
- Expectancy of a Timid Opponent
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