Why is GSP willing to fight a 230lb man in Bisping but not 230lb Anderson because "he's too big"?

[MuyThaiElbows]

Fair enough, I take back my comment about your knowledge, I'm clearly mistaken on that point. But which WW should he have been fighting when he fought Alves and Hardy? Fitch again? Hughes again? At that time he was fighting the best in the division.

You can argue that he should have fought Hendricks before he fought Diaz, and it'd be true - Diaz was thrown in as a big money fight. However that's a pretty common procedure among champs, throwing a money fight in between fighting top contenders (in this case Condit and Hendricks).

And your separating GSP into different eras more or less makes my point - its not inherent in his character to run from adversity. Instead, after he'd already been talking of retirement for a couple of years before the Hendricks fight (the knee injuries seem to have reduced his enthusiasm to a large extent), the problems in that fight were enough to convince him to stick with his plan of retiring. In fact, only a fantastic performance would have convinced him to remain.

Take it from someone approaching retirement, you get tired of work, and its not at all the same as being afraid of continuing. I find it easy to sympathize with him.

GSP ran from the Anderson match since 2007...

 

[Blayt7hh]

Oh ok. he never said it. He just literally, in real time, physically ducked him

They're in different weight classes you goober. Also don't respond to me again without addressing what I wrote

 

[pilgrim4702]

They're in different weight classes you goober. Also don't respond to me again without addressing what I wrote

Lol turning down a reasonable and marketable fight is a duck. Why are you defending pussy assed ducks and excuse making "wahhhh 15 lbs I have to retire for three years to put on muscle " what a bitch. Bj penn, Dan Henderson, and Frankie didn't whine and cry about being one fucking weight class smaller lol but gsp did. What a puss. And Lol at thinking you're a somebody who's personal requests have to be adknowledged.

 

[ImLovinIt]

GSP wouldn't fight 230 pound Anderson because "he's too big" but now is willing to fight 230 pound Bisping because "it's about skills". So which one is it?

Thoughts?

Cause Anderson is on roids and bisping isn't.

 

[AnotherOldGuy]

GSP ran from the Anderson match since 2007...

They're in different weight divisions. By that measure he also ran from Cain, Jones, Liddell, Lesnar (probably his biggest payday as a match, given that Lesnar was the biggest draw in MMA at the time), and in fact every other MW, LHW and HW.

Mind you, by the same measure, Anderson ran from Jones, Liddell, Machida, Shogun, Cain, Lesnar ... well, you get the idea. Not going up in weight is not considered running, because is if it then everyone who isn't a heavyweight is running from every heavier weight division. Which makes the term meaningless.

Basically the definition of running becomes: fighting in a weight division other than HW is running. Fine if you want to go with that definition of running, but it ceases to have any negative connotation.

 

[AnotherOldGuy]

Lol turning down a reasonable and marketable fight is a duck. Why are you defending pussy assed ducks and excuse making "wahhhh 15 lbs I have to retire for three years to put on muscle " what a bitch. Bj penn, Dan Henderson, and Frankie didn't whine and cry about being one fucking weight class smaller lol but gsp did. What a puss. And Lol at thinking you're a somebody who's personal requests have to be adknowledged.

Anderson turned down Liddell, Machida, Shogun and Jones. Jones turned down Cain & JDS. All of those were reasonable and marketable.

Out of curiousity, why does it bother you so much when GSP did it, but not when Barao, Aldo, Hughes, Anderson, Jones and Liddell did it ... you'll note not a single one of those went up in weight to fight a current champion.

I agree that what Penn, Henderson, Frankie (and Couture and McGregor) did is praiseworthy. But they're the exceptions. There have been 30+ UFC champions over the years who like GSP didn't go up in weight to fight a heavier champ. Meaning if GSP is a puss, so is each of them. I think the word 'puss' doesn't mean what you think it means.

 

[pilgrim4702]

Anderson turned down Liddell, Machida, Shogun and Jones. Jones turned down Cain & JDS. All of those were reasonable and marketable.

Out of curiousity, why does it bother you so much when GSP did it, but not when Barao, Aldo, Hughes, Anderson, Jones and Liddell did it ... you'll note not a single one of those went up in weight to fight a current champion.

I agree that what Penn, Henderson, Frankie (and Couture and McGregor) did is praiseworthy. But they're the exceptions. There have been 30+ UFC champions over the years who like GSP didn't go up in weight to fight a heavier champ. Meaning if GSP is a puss, so is each of them. I think the word 'puss' doesn't mean what you think it means.

1. Please don't act like those other fights you mentioned were equal to, as asked for, as lucrative, and as marquee as Anderson vs gsp. That fight had Marinated long enough, was as ripe as fuck, and gsp griped and ducked. But I agree that champions who clean out a weight class should then logically fight up. Shame on those who don't rise to the occasionwhen asked/ when it makes sense. Gsp shares in that shame.

2. Lol I'm not singling gsp out. If a fighter is to go down as a top 5 p4p great, that's fine, but don't act like ducking Anderson is off the table and is taboo to mention. That's a huge blemish, along with not being able to finish a fight. We have to be reasonable and keep things in perspective to properly rank fighters all time. Anderson didn't go up in weight to fight a reigning champion. But he went up in weight. 4 times. Gsp never did it once. So don't act like they are equal just cause they each never fought the bigger Champ one weight class up; Gsp never even went up in weight. And the reason is likely that he couldn't finish a fight as a champ in his own weight class. so again, I'm saying let's not act like gsp and Anderson are equally deficient here.

3. You say Frankie, Henderson are exceptions, but most people rank Aldo, jones, Cruz, and most importantly gsp, ahead of them p4p all time, which I find ridiculous. Fear of fighting a bigger fighter, and ducking what would have been the highest paying fight of your career should be an automatic negative impact on ones all time p4p ranking esp when a handful of fighters actually had to balls to do it and prevail.

I'm not a fan of defending ducking, excuse making, and then coming back 3 years later when the man you ducked is no longer in the title picture. It reeks of fear. I'm not a hater of gsp, just his actions and attempts to smokescreen the ducking by mentioning 15 lbs as a deal breaker, then all of a sudden it's not a deal breaker when bisping is champ, coming off of a horrible ass whooping at the hands of, and razor thin split decision over, Dan Henderson.

But I really don't hate gsp, I just hate when competitors violate the spirit of fighting.

 

[Blayt7hh]

Lol turning down a reasonable and marketable fight is a duck. Why are you defending pussy assed ducks and excuse making "wahhhh 15 lbs I have to retire for three years to put on muscle " what a bitch. Bj penn, Dan Henderson, and Frankie didn't whine and cry about being one fucking weight class smaller lol but gsp did. What a puss. And Lol at thinking you're a somebody who's personal requests have to be adknowledged.

Damn you're so fucking dumb it hurts

 

[peytonlucy]

I wonder if GSP is still getting lotion rubbed on his chest and back to help his breathing like between rounds 1 and 2 of the BJ Penn rematch?

 

[AnotherOldGuy]

1. Please don't act like those other fights you mentioned were equal to, as asked for, as lucrative, and as marquee as Anderson vs gsp. That fight had Marinated long enough, was as ripe as fuck, and gsp griped and ducked. But I agree that champions who clean out a weight class should then logically fight up. Shame on those who don't rise to the occasionwhen asked/ when it makes sense. Gsp shares in that shame.

2. Lol I'm not singling gsp out. If a fighter is to go down as a top 5 p4p great, that's fine, but don't act like ducking Anderson is off the table and is taboo to mention. That's a huge blemish, along with not being able to finish a fight. We have to be reasonable and keep things in perspective to properly rank fighters all time. Anderson didn't go up in weight to fight a reigning champion. But he went up in weight. 4 times. Gsp never did it once. So don't act like they are equal just cause they each never fought the bigger Champ one weight class up; Gsp never even went up in weight. And the reason is likely that he couldn't finish a fight as a champ in his own weight class. so again, I'm saying let's not act like gsp and Anderson are equally deficient here.

3. You say Frankie, Henderson are exceptions, but most people rank Aldo, jones, Cruz, and most importantly gsp, ahead of them p4p all time, which I find ridiculous. Fear of fighting a bigger fighter, and ducking what would have been the highest paying fight of your career should be an automatic negative impact on ones all time p4p ranking esp when a handful of fighters actually had to balls to do it and prevail.

I'm not a fan of defending ducking, excuse making, and then coming back 3 years later when the man you ducked is no longer in the title picture. It reeks of fear. I'm not a hater of gsp, just his actions and attempts to smokescreen the ducking by mentioning 15 lbs as a deal breaker, then all of a sudden it's not a deal breaker when bisping is champ, coming off of a horrible ass whooping at the hands of, and razor thin split decision over, Dan Henderson.

But I really don't hate gsp, I just hate when competitors violate the spirit of fighting.

1) Jones-Anderson was as lucrative and asked for, possibly moreso given that at the end both Jones and Anderson were outdrawing GSP. And if its mainly about money, Jones-Brock would have been even bigger back in the day, given that Brock was by far the biggest draw in MMA.

2) There's not a single person commonly in the top 5 p4p greats who's fought a current HW champ. Yes Anderson did go up in weight, but are you really suggesting Anderson going up to fight Forest (or Irving????) was equivalent to GSP going up to fight Anderson? The equivalent fight for Anderson was Jones. Anderson scores a bit better here in that he did go up, but its marginal. He could have gone up and fought Liddell, Machida, Shogun or Jones when they were current champs, and never did. Forest was close, so he scores better than GSP there. But the other P4P contenders other than Fedor (who was a HW and had no where to go) ... that is Aldo and Jones, never went up.

Actually, thinking about it, it makes a good argument that Fedor is the number one P4P, given that he could easily have fought as a LHW but stayed as a HW.

3) You can make a strong case for Frankie, Henderson .... and you have to include Couture, Cormier, Penn and McGregor in that list ... based on going up in weight. I'm open to that. But it excludes Jones, GSP, Aldo, Anderson, because they never went up to fight a current champ. That leads Fedor of the ones normally listed for P4P.

And I think I'd be a lot more sympathetic to your argument if you were arguing that weight divisions should be abolished. As it is it sounds inconsistent - you're basically saying they both should be there, but they also shouldn't be relevant.

 

[MuyThaiElbows]

They're in different weight divisions. By that measure he also ran from Cain, Jones, Liddell, Lesnar (probably his biggest payday as a match, given that Lesnar was the biggest draw in MMA at the time), and in fact every other MW, LHW and HW.

Mind you, by the same measure, Anderson ran from Jones, Liddell, Machida, Shogun, Cain, Lesnar ... well, you get the idea. Not going up in weight is not considered running, because is if it then everyone who isn't a heavyweight is running from every heavier weight division. Which makes the term meaningless.

Basically the definition of running becomes: fighting in a weight division other than HW is running. Fine if you want to go with that definition of running, but it ceases to have any negative connotation.

A fight with Silva is realistic....your examples of Cain, Brock, etching is irrelevant. GSP dodged Silva because it was a horrible matchup for him, but now he can make 185?

 

[AnotherOldGuy]

A fight with Silva is realistic....your examples of Cain, Brock, etching is irrelevant. GSP dodged Silva because it was a horrible matchup for him, but now he can make 185?

The argument for GSP going up to fight Anderson, Anderson going up to fight Jones, Jones going up to fight Cain (or now Stipe) is that weight isn't an important factor. Its partly based on the original UFC's, where Royce beat guys much bigger than him, partly on the idea that there are no size divisions in other sports and shouldn't be in combat sport because they're artificial. And there have been examples of guys smaller than GSP winning at open weight high level combat sport - not only Royce, but Kimura (who walked around at 170 pounds winning the all Japan judo tournament (no weight divisions) against very fit guys weighing 250+ pounds, Marciano winning HW boxing at 180 pounds (again with no weight cut, meaning he was smaller than GSP).

And following that argument, its just as realistic to have GSP fight Aldo or Anderson or Jones or Brock, because you fight as you are, just as Michael Jordan didn't play in a 6'2" to 6'6" basketball division, just like Wayne Gretzky didn't play in a 170-190 pound hockey division.

On the other hand, if weight is important enough to have weight divisions, it makes no more sense to ask a fighter to leave their division than to say ask Gretzky to play defense in hockey to prove he's a candidate for all time great hockey player, or to ask Tom Brady to play fullback to show he's a candidate for an all time great NFL player. If separations exist in a sport, then you're judged by how you do in them, not how you do in a different division.

I'm open to the idea of getting rid of weight divisions - they're artificial, and take away from the purity of the sport. But if we're going to have them, then its silly to ask fighters to ignore them.