Most Technical Fighter (current or all time, UFC or Pride)

[Millennium Man**]

which fighters in the UFC or Pride, currently or all time, are the most technical and fundamentally proficient? Fighters with no physical and athletic advantages but still have gone far due to their basic skills as a fighter? Or in other words, if you're gonna teach someone how to fight the right way, whose highlights would you want him to watch as a textbook example?

 

[Dominor]

Probably Anderson Silva or Machida in terms of technique.

 

[axewand]

Anderson Silva
/thread

 

[Oenomaus]

Don't mean to sound cliche, but Royce Gracie. That was scrawny and small compared to the rest of the people in the early UFCs.

 

[TheMan123]

Gsp

 

[Vaughany]

Leonard Garcia easily

 

[Tiger_vs_Mantis]

BJ, GSP, Anderson, Machida, Condit, Florian, Aldo, Lauzon, Kampmann come to mind

 

[lhx58]

Anderson and Machida comes to mind, Demian Maia in his first 5 UFC fights

 

[Troublesome10]

Gsp

Probably the best answer. Anderson is technical, more so than people even notice, but his creativity, speed and confidence give him an advantage when he uses that technique.

GSP never does anything flashy or spontaneous, but he works his core techniques to perfection, and executes better than anyone else.

 

[whooty]

GSP.

He has physical advantages as well, but his technique in standup, wrestling and BJJ is just great.

Guys like Machida and Silva have less visable physical advantages, both guys have amazing reflexes. Both would be great examples for the standup but GSP is the most complete technical guy.

 

[wolowitz**]

Don't mean to sound cliche, but Royce Gracie. That was scrawny and small compared to the rest of the people in the early UFCs.

Damn, I didn't know people still spout this shit.

There was nobody else there with a ground game, the gracies made sure of that.

 

[Tiger_vs_Mantis]

Don't mean to sound cliche, but Royce Gracie. That was scrawny and small compared to the rest of the people in the early UFCs.

Royce took a huge amount of abuse to pull off what were in the gracie's own estimation blue-belt level techniques. Also he wasn't exactly well-rounded which is why I can't put Saku on my list as well, not with that stand up game.

 

[roggg]

All around it's GSP. Some of the other suggestions are for specialists who are highly technical in one area (like Maia). GSP is highly technical in most areas. Anderson is probably second, but lacks the technical wrestling abilities to rival GSP in this way.

 

[ThatGuyJovi]

Don't mean to sound cliche, but Royce Gracie. That was scrawny and small compared to the rest of the people in the early UFCs.

Royce didn't really have to be too technical because nobody else knew BJJ.

 

[Tiger_vs_Mantis]

All around it's GSP. Some of the other suggestions are for specialists who are highly technical in one area (like Maia). GSP is highly technical in most areas. Anderson is probably second, but lacks the technical wrestling abilities to rival GSP in this way.

I'd say that GSP's advantage in takedowns is equalled by Anderson's advantage in a BJJ bottom game, and GSP's advantage in TDD is more than equalled by Anderson's striking.

 

[lapollarecords]

Anderson Silva, without a doubt.

Don't mean to sound cliche, but Royce Gracie. That was scrawny and small compared to the rest of the people in the early UFCs.

his wins were against people who had no clue on the ground. also, his striking was terrible.

 

[Tiger_vs_Mantis]

oh how could I forget Rich Franklin

I would also add Vitor Belfort and Randy Couture

 

[Andre Xiong]

Sakuraba (except his punching was terrible). Kondo. Anderson Silva.

 

[Tiger_vs_Mantis]

Dominick Cruz

 

[Saskatoonmike**]

GSP.

Defensive skills as near 100% as we have seen in MMA. No style has proven to put him at threat.

Offensive skills near 90%.

His ability to dictate the fight makes him near impossible to fight.