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Silva: Rich Franklin toughest fight to date

1K views 16 replies 16 participants last post by  yorT 
#1 ·
#2 ·
Unless he purposely lost Round One to Henderson as some sort of elaborate plan, I don't quite understand this. I know Rich is Anderson's boy, and that's all well and good, but any crackpot can see that Hendo gave Silva ten times more trouble than Rich ever did, and I'm a Rich Franklin fan. Hell, even Lutter gave Silva a tougher time. I could be wrong, but I think most would agree...?
 
#3 ·
I thought that the Travis Lutter fight was a close chance for him to get a loss in the UFC ...if any. Man though … Anderson Silva is such a controlled and discipline fighter ...just a pure machine to have to go up against.
 
#4 ·
Style wise, Franklin is a great fight for Anderson, one that I would see Anderson winning 9 times out of 10. Obviously Anderson has a lot of respect for Rich and his past achievements.

Hendo I can't see making the same mistake if given another shot at Silva, and would probably push the fight harder than he did previously.

Since entering the UFC Anderson has shown that killer instinct to take full advantage and finish fights, of any opposition error.
 
#6 ·
It's good to see Silva giving some respect to Franklin who deserves it. I'm guessing Franklin was probably one of the more unorthodox dangerous fighters he's faced, that could be it. Or it could be that he might have had butterflies going into the Franklin fight, who knows. Couple of really classy dudes though.
 
#8 ·
In my eyes Franklin is still the #2 MW in the world. I think Dan matches up worse for Anderson but I could see how Anderson thought Rich was the most difficult to train for, Rich is a beast.

And he's right, Franklin is a very unorthidox striker, but he's very technical. It's harder to train for a fighter like that then for a wreckless fighter that puts his chin down and starts swinging like Dan, atleast stand-up wise.
 
#11 ·
I think he felt that Rich had some tools that could pose some real danger for Anderson.

Perhaps he just doesn't feel like Dan had the ability to really hurt him. Sure he could take him down, but couldn't do anything with it....and we saw how much better Silva was on the feet. Rich's striking is, well, kinda weird. Unpredictable, and that can be dangerous.
 
#14 ·
Yeah, Silva never said Rich was the toughest fight, but the toughest one to train for. And I believe him. Even though Anderson is a southpaw, he still doesn't fight that many southpaws, so that in itself is a challenging aspect to training for Rich. Add on top of that Rich's striking style and you got a tough training camp ahead of you.
 
#15 ·
I can believe what anderson says. Rich Franklin has a very unorthodox and yet very technical striking style, top it off with the fact that in the second fight there was the possibility of Franklin trying to take it to the ground (which he did but couldn't really get in any position to cause damage), so that was another thing silvia would have to train for. A great striker who might want to mix it up and take it to the ground will be hell for anyone to train for.

Henderson and Lutter pretty much could try only one thing, take silvia down and either pound him or tap him out. Yea henderson has decent striking but the minute he tried using it we all saw what happened.

Also i think it has something to do with the fact that out of the three fighters, Franklin was the only one that didn't bitch and moan about the lose nor did he come up with excuses. He was the only one that gave Anderson the credit he deserved for taking the match.
 
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