Do YOU believe GSP was afraid to fight Anderson Silva?

[VIPERdude]

Its 2019 and yes this has been asked in the past but mostly the topic was brought about PRE-Bisping fight for the MW title. Now Post-MW GSP/Bisping...Also want to here knew thoughts today.

Fans wanted Anderson Silva vs. Georges St-Pierre more than ever. The calls for this fight to be made started at 2009. In 2012 and 2013, Anderson Silva and Georges St-Pierre had arguably reached their peak popularity. Silva had cashed in on a blockbuster rematch with Chael Sonnen at UFC 148, while GSP's return from multiple knee injuries saw him beat Carlos Condit and Nick Diaz, pulling in an estimated 1.7 million combined buys in the process. Despite multiple quotes from Dana White indicating that Silva vs. GSP would happen, it never did. It was also stated by Anderson Silva that he would have even been willing to cut to 170 to fight GSP (SOURCE: BloodyElbow.com). So, Anderson moved up to test himself against LHW's like James Irvin and Forrest Griffin since GSP never wanted it


Remember he had no problem fighting Michael Bisping for the MW championship.

I have my own thoughts and opinion on it but rather than say what I think and turn it into a bash the TS conversation for my opinion like most of these threads do, I just would like to hear why YOU feel GSP didnt want to test himself against Anderson Silva.

 

[613]

Do you believe Anderson was afraid to fight Jones? Champs shouldn't be required to move up. GSP had a belt to defend.

 

[Sansnom]

Oh, this shit again.

I'm sure you can find hundreds of threads like these if you used the search function.

But Inb4 10 pages of arguing.

 

[VinceArch]

I do. In his position I wouldn't want to fight someone who takes blue pills from Thailand either.

 

[Viking Power]

No. He was just smart not to risk it.

 

[Iron Nick]

I don't know.
It would've been understandable if he was, although St-Pierre (stylistically) is a nightmare-matchup for Anderson Silva if you ask me.

 

[Mike]

I believe they weren't willing to pay him enough to risk it. He saw first-hand with Penn that trying to compete in multiple divisions at once is distracting. He didn't want to lose focus and end up not being the greatest ww ever.

It is ridiculous though that insecure Silva fans frame it as gsp being scared or ducking. Using that logic every fighter is a duck including Anderson. Didn't want to fight Shogun or Jones among others.

 

[The XL]

There is 0 doubt that GSP was scared shitless of Anderson. To be fair, Anderson wanted nothing to do with Jones either, but he wasn't nearly as scared.

 

[CasualMMAfanSince2010]

 

[cheesus]

No

 

[TR1]

Neither guy showed much balls in moving up for most of their careers.

Move on.

 

[DOZERR]

There's no need to bieleve anything because firas confirmed it last time he was on Rogan. He literally said that him and gsp didn't think it was a good idea to fight Silva at the time due to his size and everything they had to lose..... Aka ducking him.

 

[dipstickjimmy]

There is 0 doubt that GSP was scared shitless of Anderson. To be fair, Anderson wanted nothing to do with Jones either, but he wasn't nearly as scared.

How do you come to this conclusion? Anderson was too good of a friend to challenge Machida. OK they trained together. Shogun OK he would fight Anderson but they trained together. Rampage? No they didn't train and Page had KO power and wrestling (despite stopping using it) and don't forget Jon Jones. Anderson was magically Jon's friend so they couldn't fight.

GSP saw no reason to fight Anderson when he had a line of worthy challengers at WW and Anderson had no one to fight at MW. He is the one who should have moved up but didn't. Forest, Irvin and Bonnar are all exactly the style to Showcase Anderson's skills. Slow sloppy brawler strikers with no TDs.

Chael Sonnen ragdolled Anderson for 5 rounds with only wrestling and GSP has better wrestling and as good a skill set in every other facet of MMA. Georges would have done exactly what Sonnen did without getting subbed by a Hail Mary triangle at the last second.

 

[TheSpider]

Yes he was, which is why GSP ducked Silva for nearly a decade

 

[Cylence]

No, but I do believe he viewed it as a bad risk, and made the appropriate call.

 

[Schaub]

Chael beat Anderson for 23 and a half minutes, to think that GSP couldn't have done the same or better is just foolish.

Hespect to both champs for not screwing up divisions. I could see either one beating the other.

 

[chillyoo]

GSP says he’s scared every fight so it’s only natural to say he’d be scared of the scariest MW ever

 

[Benoitthegr8]

IMO most fighters aren’t afraid of other fighters, they fear losing


with the obvious exception of Bader and Rumble

 

[SHAZAM]

I don't believe it. He PROVED it. Michael Bisping fight proved it.

Anderson vs Jones don't count since they're different eras. GSP vs Silva was the dream fight. They both cleared their divisions.

 

[WalterSobchak]

Boner pills.