It's just an opinion on the guy. The cage was still being used as a major weapon at that point in MMA. These days it's used by guys like Izzy to stay up against better grappler. 2013 was during the wall and stall era dude. How is it an uneducated opinion? That was still during a time when strikers were avoiding the cage, now it's the main strategy to return to your feet as MMA evolved.
Who else does Weidman have on his resume besides those guys pre belt?
Alessio Sakara who was 6-4 in the UFC at the time. Great win on debut but not worth a major mention and a pre UFC Hall.
Tom Lalwer who hung around for quite a while also.
You say I am trolling but that's what made Weidman win over Silva so impressive. He was a 9-0 pro who beat some great grapplers in Maia and Munhoz, but was thrown in there to be highlight reeled by Silva. He instead highlight reeled Silva and then won via a legit technique with the leg check. He beat the ghost of Belfort, great win over Machida before getting destroyed by Rockhold after throwing the worst spinning kick in history (maybe Schevchenko's is worse) against a guy who is great at them and lost his title. He then went 2-7 with his only wins being Gastelum (good win) and Omari (Easily could have gone the other way).
Weidman is now 15-7. He has nearly more ranked losses than his has wins now.
Izzy win over KG wasn't great either. KG is a great fighter that couldn't be bothered to train hard and make 170. It makes sense though after his performance vs Strickland. Both have great boxing and Izzy has a hole there if he can't use his leg kicks to keep you away.
"The wall and stall era" is a rather sherbro concept but saying it was in 2013 is indeed uneducated.
If such "era" existed, it was when the cage circuit became the principal in MMA right after Pride folded.
By 2013, Bisping or Machida to name a couple MW strikers very well knew to use the cage to their advantage. So did Anderson Silva btw.
Is Gastelum a fighter from wall and stall era too?
Israel's career has been greater than Weidman's, sure.
To say Weidman fought "absolutely nobody" before fighting for the tittle is false. He was 5-0 with two ranked wins, jus like Israel.
Only that Israel struggled with 43 years old Silva way more than Weidman did with a 5 years younger Silva, twice. Same vs Gastelum, who gave Izzy the tittle.
Even vs Romero, looked better until a crazy flying knee.
Weidman could be a live underdog vs an Israel who has been taken down by Vettori, Whittker or Jan several times. To suggest they had superior wrestling/ground game than Weidman for being from "evolved era" of mma is indeed pretty uneducated and sherbro-like to me