Retrospection on Mark Hunt vs. Wanderlei Silva

[depassage]

Knowing the striking power of Hunt, it is amazing how Silva handled that fight.
And in my opinion (and Hunt was himself surprised of the outcome), Wanderlei was the real winner.
Truely Wanderlei was rocked but never went down.

 

[Oggy]

Umm, he went down multiple times as far as I can remember...

 

[Thuum]

It was close, but I thought Hunt edged it by doing more damage.

 

[Saren]

Only fight I remember from Vanderlei was the Cris Leban fight

 

[AgentSmecker]

Hunto deserved the nod for this one magnificent technique alone...

 

[Zerfleischer]

Knowing the striking power of Hunt, it is amazing how Silva handled that fight.
And in my opinion (and Hunt was himself surprised of the outcome), Wanderlei was the real winner.
Truely Wanderlei was rocked but never went down.

Hunt clearly won that fight, it was a brave effort by Wanderlei, but Hunt won, Wanderlei couldn't do anything to him.

Also this was a career changer for Wandy, he never looked the same after this match.

 

[MacDougall]

It always makes me laugh when people give Hunt props for that win because Wanderlei was on a streak. Fucks sake he outweighed him by 100lbs! And that was when Hunt was giving a fuck. Wanderlei actually surviving to a contentious decision was a far more impressive feat in that fight and I love my Hunto.

 

[TheGreatA]

This fight took years off Wanderlei's career probably. He got caught with some massive punches, which would've knocked the UFC version of Wanderlei Silva out cold.

 

[TheGreatA]

It always makes me laugh when people give Hunt props for that win because Wanderlei was on a streak. Fucks sake he outweighed him by 100lbs! And that was when Hunt was giving a fuck. Wanderlei actually surviving to a contentious decision was a far more impressive feat in that fight and I love my Hunto.

This speaks of how highly Wanderlei was regarded at the time. He seemed to be able to walk through anything. He was never the same man after the Hunt and CroCop fights.

The guy was 210+ lbs of pure muscle in those days:

 

[depassage]

Wanderlei had a chin.

 

[GabbaGabba]

Wanderlei never had a chin, even Sakuraba dropped him. What he had was amazing recovery, he got dropped and just got back up like nothing happened. After Crocop and Hendo KO's he seemed to lose that.

 

[chiefwiggum]

Favorite fighter of all time. He should have definitely got the decision. Pride had a weird scoring system favoring the smaller fighter under a certain kg. See Herring vs Belfort I think. They reference the rule in both fights. ( I am really high and it might not be in either fight.)

 

[J0N0]

Knowing the striking power of Hunt, it is amazing how Silva handled that fight.
And in my opinion (and Hunt was himself surprised of the outcome), Wanderlei was the real winner.
Truely Wanderlei was rocked but never went down.

I can see why youd think that as under UFC/Unified rules Wanderlei should have won; but under Pride rules knock downs and getting close to finishing was scored waaaaaaay over anything else (I'm sure if you google the scoring criteria it won't be hard to find). Silva had a lot of top control, especially in the last few minutes, but unless you do damage with it it doesn't count for much.

Mark knocked Silva down 3 time iirc (?) and that's the main reason he was rightly awarded the victory under the scoring system.