Anderson Silva Has Lost the Pound for Pound Crown

Hoping to get a new series started, Great Moments in MMA History. First article in the series is up, one of my personal favorite moments from Anderson Silva. Get it here.

Bear in mind that I'm not taking myself too seriously and just want to talk about some of my favorite moments for the sake of nostalgia. Anyone has any recommendations, I'd love to hear them.

Lots of new stuff up today, and plus a bit of a backlog I forgot to post: thoughts on Rampage/Machida, Schaub/Gonzaga, and my Top 5 Fights for the Rest of 2010. Get it here, here, and here.

Glad you found time to catch up, bro, I always look forward to reading your comments. I'm in a "controversial and lovin' it" kind of mood and have been that way for the past several days, so here are two articles concerning why I think Matyushenko will derail Jonny Bones and why I think James Toney is going to knock out Randy Couture.

Get 'em here and here.

I'm not mad about your Shogun one anymore lol. I hope this fight Toney shows up lean and ripped like he was in Middleweight and according to Dana he is in really good shape. I do think he will KO Couture, i've pretty much all ready said my opinons on this fight in the other thread and all I can say now is I hope Toney doen't get to cocky like he normaly does because that crapwill get him taken down.

Well, looks like the Toney one may end up getting right up there with the Shogun one. Lots of people don't like it, but surprisingly enough, there's a couple that do. Regardless, I think it's really fun to get this kind of debate going, and even if some posters choose to call me names, I think articles like these accomplish a lot because it gets people talking.

Here's my first response to the comments I've been getting so far.

"Well, I appreciate the interest this has garnered. I don’t want to fill up the entire page with a response to every comment, so here’s a general response taken from some of the responses I’ve gotten so far.

In regards to weight, I don’t know about you, but Toney has looked MASSIVE in all the pre-fight interviews I’ve seen him in recently. I’m talking at least 240. Doesn’t matter if he’s flabby, Roy Nelson says hello. Even if Toney is rocking the beer gut, those fists are dynamite in four ounce gloves.

Nothing is impossible, but for me, the odds of Randy KO’ing Toney are about as good as the odds of Toney submitting Randy. Couture’s striking IS NOT as good as it once was, it’s been almost three years since his last TKO. Add to this the fact that ALL of Couture’s finishes have come by TKO, he’s never stone-cold KO’d somebody in his entire career. Again, I have to bring up the fact that Toney has never been KO’d once in OVER TWENTY YEARS. If you put him against someone like Junior Dos Santos, then yeah, I think Toney might become separated from his consciousness. But Couture straight knocking him out when the man has been boxing at a professional level since 1988 and never been knocked out or even TKO’d once? People really think Couture will be the one to end that streak? I sure as hell don’t.

If Toney lands one DECENT punch, Couture will go down in the same heap that Brock Lesnar put him in. There wasn’t any kind of grappling or struggling or etc. etc., Couture went down, stayed down, and Lesnar pounced on the opportunity. If Toney lands one GOOD punch, Couture is getting KO’d right then and there.

In regards to submissions and such, you’ve got me there, but everyone seems to be over-hyping Couture’s submission skills due to his recent RNC over Coleman. Try to remember, Couture has three submission wins on his record. In almost thirty fights, he’s submitted people only three times. He’s lost more fights by submission than he’s won. People that are saying that he’ll win by armbar or RNC or etc. etc., those are some of the most basic moves in the game. There’s no way Toney hasn’t been training against submissions. I don’t see him reversing or anything like that, but I see him surviving Randy’s attempts.

That’s all Toney has to do once this thing goes to the ground: survive. His chin will protect him, his submission defense (however small it may be) should be enough for him to just wait it out until the end of the round, or until Couture gets bored and tries to GNP some more.

At the end of the day, there are two reasons why I’m picking Toney to win. The first and of course the most important one is because I truly believe he can. But the second one is definitely because so many people are outright trashing him and making him out to be some type of scrub or sacrificial lamb.

James Toney is a beast. He’s always been a beast. Even if he loses this fight, he’ll continue to be a beast.

As I said before, all Toney has to do is survive Randy’s game and make Randy play his. I can see Toney surviving the GNP and submission attempts even if he loses a couple of rounds in the process. But in spite of the championships he’s won, the caliber of opponents he’s faced, the legacy he’s leaving behind, the praise he rightfully deserves, despite all of that…I simply DO NOT see Randy Couture taking one good, clean James Toney bomb-punch right on the chin and still remaining upright.

And as always, if I’m proven wrong you guys can call me on it. At the end of the day, I’ll be a man about it and take my serving of humble pie with a smile. But this is my opinion, I’m sticking to it, and if it gets proven right, I’m going to love every minute of it."

You're most welcome Sir, it's good to know how vital my feedback (amongst others) is to you in this field.
My coffee went down a treat reading your two articles, and I must say, it's not a preconceived notion here, but I find myself agreeing with you for the most part here.

Firstly, I must concede that I've not seen many of Toney's fights, but have been impressed with what I have seen, even moreso with that impressive statistic regarding him never being TKO'd.
The fact that Couture is 2-2 recently and looked most dominant against Gabriel Gonzaga a while ago shows that there is something for Toney to study up on, with Couture's clinch game and dirty boxing being the deciding factors.
Toney really only needs one good punch as you said, much like Lesnar's (though it wasn't really that good, but still got the job done).
Couture's vaunted Greco-Roman wrestling and ground game are fantastic weapons in his arsenal as well, but the fact that Toney's been training against these and that Couture needs more power in his hands leads me to believe that Toney's chin will ultimately cancel it out and pick up a (shocking) win. It'll be a hugely interesting fight, no doubt whatsoever.

As for 'Bones' Jones, he's fantastic no doubt, and after seeing him recently on UFC Unleashed, saw a few flaws in his game that I believe Matyushenko could possibly exploit.
Similar to Ben Rothwell VS Cain Velasquez at UFC 104, where a seasoned veteran took on a relative newcomer with a fair amount of (warranted and not) hype, this shapes up to be quite interesting for the Light Heavyweight division.
I believe Vladimir could be a real good test for Jones, who looked fantastic against Vera earlier, and can spot the holes in Jones' offense (wide open with strikes, evading, etc) he can take it.

Again great stuff PDW, looking forward to your next works.

Well, I've said quite a whole heck of a lot in the comments section of the Toney article, so just check there if anyone is interested in my continuing replies.

Today's article was typed up mostly in a daze because I couldn't go to sleep, and should be taken as nothing more than my attempt at humor. It's the top five fighters most likely to survive a zombie apocalypse! Get it here.

Thanks as always for the positive comments, I really look forward to them. Here's a link to the Anderson Silva article for those who haven't read it yet.

I loved the article on Anderson...

..I don't understand all the hate on him as of late.


he has beaten every opponent put in front of him so far in the UFC....finished all but 3 of those fights. But yet people still hate him and constantly criticize his every move. He doesn't trash talk fighters or anything. I hope to God he f***ing destroys Sonnen.