Criticism flows from everywhere about Cain's and JDS' striking defense in the wake of their memorable fight yesterday, but who are the fighters with the best striking/boxing defense in the UFC? Feel free to talk about retired fighters and fighters currently not in the UFC too.
Anderson Silva. BJ Penn use to, at least he did in LW. Also, Roy Nelson covers up well but doesn't use much head movement; he still gets tagged.
Best Striking defense? I bizarrely think it's Anderson Silva, but I want to be proven wrong when JBJ elbows meet his face.
I dont know about Cruz. He has some bad holes. Best, Anderson and Aldo. Rampage has pretty decent boxing defense.
Leben as in past or now? Because the Leben we saw at 155 got tagged by gassed Brunson who isn't known for good boxing.
Anderson is an interesting one. He has insane reactions and head movement but he does get hit. Bonnar connected on 28 out of his 59 strikes before he was brutally stopped. Maia and Sonnen (in the first fight) were also able to land some punches despite having relatively poor striking. Forrest couldn't land anything but he's slow on a good day and was drugged up on anti-anxiety medication for that fight.
It's a joke, he posted the guys with worst defense. Best defense is Anderson Silva, number 1 and nobody is close. Jon Jones got good defense but in a weird way, mostly by keeping distance and taking guys down, not really in a boxing/kickboxing way but it works for mma. Lyoto is good at keeping distance and avoiding inexperienced strikers(most mma fighters get tagged even by wrestlers spamming overhand rights), but makes terrible mistakes and gets tagged.