Do you really think that this MW era is better than Anderson's era ?

[Hazuki Ryo]

We have Whittaker, Till, Gastelum, Vettori, Costa, Romero as the top dogs of this era to challenge Adesanya.
Rockhold and Weidman have been sent into retirement pretty quickly..
Whittaker is one of the MW Goats, so nothing to Say. gastelum is a bloated WW who has a weird body type and can't get a win lately.
Vettori and Costa are meathead with no fight IQ, Romero was good but unable to use his wrestling credenscials..

There's not really a bad match up for adesanya now.. Back when Anderson was champ, Hendo, Chael, or Marquadt would have been more challenging

 

[Koro_11]

Izzy = poor mans Anderson Silva

 

[BalloonFoot]

MW is clearly Izzy and Whittaker. Would love to see a prime Silva fighting at MW at the same time as those two.

I'm sure most would say that the current MW is deeper than Silva's, but only because Silva made it look easy.

 

[dildos]

2017 was the best mw division imo. and even prime anderson would have been around that ranking tbh. i got the whole top 10 cept for branch beating prime anderson. compare this group to the division anderson was king and you will laugh so hard you would break some ribs!

Middleweight - 20/11/2017 (taken from mma-stats.com) https://www.mma-stats.com/rankings/2017-11-20

Middleweight

1. 
   
   • ChampionGeorges St-Pierre
   • 1Robert Whittaker (Interim Champion)
   • 2Michael Bisping
   • 3Yoel Romero
   • 4Luke Rockhold
   • 5Ronaldo Souza
   • 6Chris Weidman
   • 7Derek Brunson
   • 8Anderson Silva
   • 9Kelvin Gastelum
   • 10David Branch
   • 11Uriah Hall
   • 12Vitor Belfort
   • 13Krzysztof Jotko
   • 14Lyoto Machida
   • 15Paulo Costa

 

[DaRivv20]

No the StrikeForce 2013-16 era was the best era IMO.



Jacare

Andy

Moose

Rockhold

Chris

Romero

Vitor

Okami

Machida

Kennedy




However Anderson’s reign was naturally the best but I think that the 2013-2016 era was better because it was more competitive as I feel like dominant champions can stagnate a division a little.

This is also why I believe the Lawler reign was the best era in Welterweight.

 

[Karl_Hungus]

I do feel that the MW division, as a whole, is slightly better now, but prime Silva is still better than prime Izzy.

 

[DoctorsStoppage]

Izzy = poor mans Anderson Silva

Izzy is Anderson Silva at 30%. At best.

 

[DoctorsStoppage]

Everybody thinks this MW division is trash, what are your rambling about TS?

 

[chinarice]

MW was at its peak when Teh Chris started his reign. Probably ended around 2016 or so.

 

[ImNotMirsadBektic]

Izzy is a better K1 kickboxer than Anderson Silva, but with 4 oz gloves, Silva's superior boxing, head movement and clinch game, Silva is the superior MMA striker. I would give Izzy the better TDD, kicks and maybe distance management, that's it.

Silva's era was weaker, but that doesn't mean he can't still comfortably be the MW GOAT. To draw a comparison to another sport, in tennis Federer won most of his slams between 2003-2007 in a relatively mediocre era, but it coincided with his prime and it is absolutely no guarantee he wouldn't have won those slams (or at least 80-90% of them) regardless (the level of his game was too obviously insane and his biggest competitor in non Roland Garros slams would be Djokovic who even struggled mightily against Fed in the early 2010s when Federer already turned 30 so he would lose more often than not against prime Federer), even against the stronger field of 2008-2014. Same applies to Anderson Silva, his era was weaker but your eyes don't lie. He has always looked more impressive than Izzy because he is better, not because a relatively mediocre competition can make you look like a GOAT.

 

[Hellowhosthat]

I'd back Izzy to beat most of the challengers from Andy's era except for Chael, Chael would have been a massive problem for Izzy imo.

 

[Dan Torrance]

It was super stacked for a good 5 years or so. Insanely so and Izzy Emerged from that Victorious.

What I don't understand is why Yoel didn't wrestle Izzy.

 

[Bangkok ready d1]

Yes sports don't get worse with time unless they get less popular ( which is not the case for mma) you talking trash about the guys won't make it to be true you just need to look at the number of fighters in the mw roster.

 

[Bangkok ready d1]

It was super stacked for a good 5 years or so. Insanely so and Izzy Emerged from that Victorious.

What I don't understand is why Yoel didn't wrestle Izzy.

Cause he doesn't wrestle anyone, plus he doesn't seem to have good ground control so his mma wrestling is pretty useless.

 

[Sonny Qc]

But a fckng Miles!!!!

Silva won the belt in 06'

07' MW Ranking

1. Anderson
2. Paulo Filho
3. Rich Franklin
4. Matt Lindland
5. Robbie Lawler
6. Yushin Okami
7. Frank Trigg
8. Kazuo Mizaki
9. Nate Marquardt
10. Sexyama

(I'm not shitting ya'll, google it)

 

[RockyLockridge]

Yes.

Without question, MW is weaker than it was 5 years ago, but is stronger than it was 10 years ago.

but i will agree, there are no bad match ups for izzy

 

[NoBiasJustMMA]

If you mean the end of the Anderson era maybe not. If you mean the beginning or middle today's MW division is better.

 

[DagOban**]

No one is near achieving what Silva has achieved at MW.

This shouldn't even be discussed.

 

[acannxr]

We have Whittaker, Till, Gastelum, Vettori, Costa, Romero as the top dogs of this era to challenge Adesanya.
Rockhold and Weidman have been sent into retirement pretty quickly..
Whittaker is one of the MW Goats, so nothing to Say. gastelum is a bloated WW who has a weird body type and can't get a win lately.
Vettori and Costa are meathead with no fight IQ, Romero was good but unable to use his wrestling credenscials..

There's not really a bad match up for adesanya now.. Back when Anderson was champ, Hendo, Chael, or Marquadt would have been more challenging

I'll just quote myself:

These were the top Middleweights from 2008-2011:

Jake Shields
Dan Henderson
Ronaldo Souza
Luke Rockhold
Gegard Mousasi
Vitor Belfort
Demian Maia
Chael Sonnen
Michael Bisping
Anderson Silva

Personally I think the above ten fighters, collectively, are laughably superior to the current top ten.

 

[Only Here for Attachments]

So much propaganda about MW. Haters were always downplaying Anderson’s competition and the division as a whole.