First of all, Pele was a great fighter, anybody who disagrees didn't follow MMA back then. If you look at the record of somebody and it doesn't have a bunch of bignames, it makes sense because it was in the 1990s... it's all relative.
Secondly, Pele never expanded his game and obviously became a C-level fighter as MMA evolved and more importantly, some of his training habits and physical gifts deteriorated.
To change the topic a bit, to make it more about Anderson's character:
Finally, many people have claimed Anderson to be a scum bag and liar, and he actually got sued for his book by Rudimar Fedrigo (head Chuxe Boxe trainer and kind of a questionable character himself).
Anderson also got "caught' calling Vitor a coward when he forgot he was mic'd up during a UFC filming when he was training with former friend, then enemy, and friend-again Wanderlei Silva.
I also thought the whole debacle with Demian Maia was crazy. After the fight at the post-fight presser, he eventually said he aimed to punish Maia for being "disrespectful" prior to the fights. Interestingly enough, in the Octagon with Joe Rogan, he said he didn