I must admit I picked Rich Franklin and Hendo to beat him both times.
All this time, I believed he was one of the most overated fighters of all time, especially on top of his hypocritical demeanor between what he says and does, which can be totally two different thing, one being of total respect and other being of absolute sensitive full retard a-hole.
Anderson did show the true heart of the champion in certain fights, overcoming the adversity and what not, but the main reason why I never thought much of him was the fact that
well, he just isn't that great at wrestling. When he fought Lutter and got taken down and mounted like a rag doll, there was this rumor, god knows where, where Anderson was letting him take him down to show his bjj skills or something. Did fish invent ocean to breathe through gills too or was it the other way around
I don't think Anderson is really that great at striking enough in a hypothetical skill for skill pound for pound setting where you can rank him that highly anywhere, really, other than the fact that he most often finds the wins. He was an amazing fighter, but not as good as some people made him out to be as the best of all time.
I believe Anderson himself said that he cuts from 230 and he is taller than Fedor. If he was a solid muscled 230 with his skill set, do you really think he would've beat guys like Schilt, Hunt, Hong Man Choi before tumor removal surgery which made him a living zombie, Crocop and those pure strikers? Of course not. Schilts would've front kicked Anderson's face in to the third row.
The best striker Anderson beat is Vitor probably, but a couple years back they fought, no one gave a fuck about Vitor but he somehow was making his way back to the relevance, but if I'm not mistaken, Vitor was coming off a year long lay off. Chris Weidman, who was a terrible match up for Anderson, from whom Anderson might have wanted to stay away from, if I'm also not mistaken, was also coming off from a lay off longer than a year.
Who's the second best striker Anderson beat? Rich? Hendo? Forrest? Lee? Leben? The list is astoundingly short for such an amazing striker, and for such an awesome boxer, he sure doesn't seem to have fuck all or a limited number of one punch knock out kos given how many fights he had under the belt.
Some people talk as if to make Anderson's accomplishments look greater, but the middleweight division in the past was, without a single doubt, the weakest division in the UFC that they had back then.
