InB4 angry Shael fans crying or angry moderators Wastlanding this bish.
inb4 TS can't stand people disagreeing with his opinion.
...oh wait.
Way to quote out of context. I said if he always fought like Cigano against Velasquez, like as if he got huge damage every time and was still willing to step up, he would be fearless. But he knows that either he wrasslefucks the other guy or that he turtles up until referee stops the fight. Not that scary.
Seriously though, out of curiosity, how many fights has Chael
just turtled up in? He's only been finished by strikes a few times, all former champions and two of them considered all time greats (Anderson and Jones). He gave Anderson a fight and clearly won the first round of that fight, and Jones had a
huge size advantage over him and he still went in trying to win. His most recent loss, to Rashad, was a product of him getting outwrestled and outmuscled by a guy who's fought LHWs and HWs his entire career. Rashad took him down and he couldn't get back up, but he still went in to that fight going after Rashad and he certainly didn't just turtle up. That sounds like more than just turtling up to me at least, if you wanna see that go look up Bob Sapp.
I'm sorry, but while I'm thinking about this why do you conveniently leave out the time he stepped up to face Shogun when Little Nog pulled out of that fight? They ended up making the fight (just like what happened with Jones), with Shogun being a former champion who everybody thought would "turtle" Chael just like you're implying... and Chael finished him in the first. Not fearless at all, turtles when he takes a shot, etc... right?
The fact is, and I'm not like Chael's biggest fan or anything either, Chael is a great fighter. His losses recently come to Anderson Silva, Jon Jones, and Rashad Evans, none of which are exactly slouches in MMA. The guy will fight anybody, I can't remember him ever pulling out of a fight, and when he's in the fight he tries to win. You can't expect the man to be perfect and you can't turn around after a couple of losses and act like he's always turtled up when taking a big shot. He hasn't. He's just gotten beat by bigger, better fighters. He's had his great performances (first Silva fight, Shogun fight, almost any other fight he had at Middleweight other than Anderson really) and he's just not a Light Heavyweight. The fact that he's still taking fights at light heavyweight shows his fearlessness.
Also, one last thing, the comparison between Jones/Sonnen and Tito/Schlemenko you brought up earlier, Schlemenko didn't have as much to lose in that fight as you make it seem. Wasn't for his title, wasn't at his weight class, was against a guy that fights 20 pounds heavier than him and is naturally much bigger than that when he himself was a small Middleweight. If he won he, a middleweight, beat Tito Ortiz. That'd have been one of the biggest wins of his career. If he lost, well, oh well. Tito was so much bigger than him we can't say anything about him after that loss. That's exactly how it went. The lesson learned from that fight is that Schlemenko should stay at Middleweight and that's really about it.
