How is this possible?!

Ok i've been on this site for about three days now and I am shocked that this sight being up for so long does not have any threads for the Anderson Silva forum!!! What is wrong here?! I thought I'd at least find some "I hate the spider" threads or something. How can this man, who is considered by this website (which means all of its members) the no. 2 pound for pound best fighter and no. 1 middle weight AND no. 10 favourite fighter not have posts!!! For shame. Discuss.

@Gregory very valid concern with the weight jumping issues! I have to ask though, is it that much of a problem? GSP has been rumored to hit almost 200lbs between fights (I'm pretty sure that's good mass too, not the jelly that a lot of fighters put on during down time) and Anderson self admittedly walks around in excess of 220lbs. I'm in total support of the weight class system but fact of the matter is we have seen fights with far greater weight differences back in the day of the Absolute Grand Prix and PRIDE rules. Size does matter but styles and technique are what win fights. In the UFC there is plenty of downtime between bouts now that they have such a stacked roster, leaving enough time between bouts for fighters to adjust their weight accordingly.

@cayman that's a great point about Segal and what I was trying to get at. I don't have a problem with Anderson saying he helped him with the technique but I believe there was too much praise on his part. The Labelle thing is hilarious and I totally forgot about that, and it does bring in a good point of his experience. Your fantasy matches also make amazing sense in my head, but I agree with @george in that they would not happen because of the business model. But I agree with you in that they could do these weight jumps because of the huge roster the ufc now has.

Steven Seagal = the baddest man on the planet! @caymanfighter - i agree with you, its cool he was there but for Silva to give him all the credit seems a little off. I will never discredit Seagal as a martial artist and i am sure he can help to clean up some techniques but i was wondering if anyone would get into his personal life. My opinion, being a martial artist should run through your blood, soul, and spirit. Meaning you should act as one in your everday and personal lives, something Seagal has never done. He's been married 4 times, cheated on 3 wives that he's divorced, and even gotten his mistress pregnant twice while married. Don't quote me on the numbers cuz they might be off by a small margin. Moral of my story, yeah he's a great martial artist to achieve his level, but the way he's conducted himself as a human shouldn't be forgotten and should discredit his martial artist spirit to an extend.

Also, Shogun vs Silva would be sick and i was always curious why Anderson wanted to stay at MW and not take on the challenges of the LHW division when he was destroying everyone there as well.

@bklettke thanks for the additional laughs. I had no idea about the wives! Thats so true, he is always using warrior quotes from the Hagakure yet he never follows what the book teaches. So not the Way of the martial artist. Also I found this interesting opinion piece on the whole Anderson vs GSP superfight that I thought you might find interesting. http://buddhasport.com/community/articles/423/gsp-vs-silva-too-much-too-soon

Its pretty much along the lines of what I was saying yesterday. Not to be biased but GSP is being fed to a lion. Size does matter as witnessed in the Griffen vs Franklin fight.

Thats a great read, i think GSP is outmatched by size alone in a huge way. Look at the fight with Silva/Griffin. in the staredown Anderson looked to be almost as big as Forrest, who is known to be one of the largest LHWs in the division. Was he maybe a little chubby around the waist as compared to fighting at MW, of course. But everything else was on par, the guy is a monster. GSP definately has the skills to hang in there with Anderson, but he's flirting with disaster to take this fight. Witht he article, i too think Anderson should be challenging for the LHW title being he is destroying everyone he fights, not fighting a smaller fighter.

i like the "sportmanship" shown by the posters here at tap. deciding to spend more and more "mma" time here. 

@ron1169 - i don't think you'll be disappointed....

i feel like it's sacrilege to say it, but personally i would prefer to see anderson move up to 205 and compete regularly in that division than to see him stay to fight gsp at or around 185. i agree with cayman, bklettke and others that anderson is just a little too big for me to consider it a "fair fight" against gsp. i'm not saying gsp couldn't win it under some circumstances (i think he could, though he would be my underdog), but rather, that we lose out on a lot of great anderson silva fights at 205 -- think jon jones, shogun rua, rashad and others -- just to see this one "superfight."

right now, if there was a dream fight for me it would be anderson vs. bones jones, not anderson vs. gsp.

good thread going here, by the way. a lot of thoughtful comments, with respectful disagreement, and worth the read for anyone coming in to it late.

What's starting to urg me about this topic is the 205 issue with Anderson. How would a title fight at 205 not be a superfight for him? He's the same size as Shogun and he's fought there. Not to mention given Shogun's resume' he's probably worthy of a top 5 p4p ranking. So he slipped to Forrest in his debut, and has had like 4 knee surguries since then. Any aggressive striker fighting Anderson = fireworks, **** this p4p ******** superfight and give anderson some legitimate challenges. I'm not saying GSP has no chance and i'm his biggest fan. It's just a lot harder for us hardcore MMA followers to swallow rather than the "i get wasted with friends or at a bar to watch the fights" UFC viewers who think this fight should happen.

@jeremy. Pretty tough decision. But i think he can still do both if he wins.Both fighter have a lot to gain from winning but a ton to lose.

True, but I feel as though GSP is being pressured somewhat unfairly to permanently vacate his natural division. He has never fought in the UFC above 170 whereas Anderson has already fought twice at 205. So if one guy is already happily going up to the division where great fights wait for him, and the other has never done it and is being pressured to do it primarily for one "superfight," I opt to see Anderson be the one moving up.

Plus Anderson could potentially be a champion at 205 with multiple title defenses - he's that good, and that big - whereas even if GSP wins the title at 185, how long do we really think he can stay champion there against bigger, stronger competition?

This is all very true. And I mean if you haven't read the article @caymanfighter has posted about GSP being fed to the lions than you should take a look it's pretty well written. Also @jeremy I don't think it's sacrilage to say you would like to see Silva fight at 205, in my opinion it's almost unfair that he happens to have a frame that allows him to cut to 185! I mean it's absolutely huge and I would know I've met him. We're the same height and I look like an anorexic guy next to him! I also agree that any fight silva has at 205 right now will be a superfight because a tonne of the names at 205 are constantly thrown around in the p4p convo. Also if Anderson won the title, with the exception of forrest and Lyoto (because he's a teammate) all the previous 205 title holders and challenger's could fight him and it not be boring as well as up and comers as well

The LHW division is filled with strikers that would display Andersons skills even that much more. Thats the biggest reason he should be moving up. If dana white wants to see Anderson destroy guys, put him @ 205 and let him do work against all those aggresive strikers.

can we please start tweeting Dana to not let this fight happen? Okami needs his shot first! He has been pushed aside twice now after winning number 1 contender fights on two separate occasions. Guys like Cote and Leites get a shot but someone who has earned it is being shoved aside because he comes across as "boring". I don't know about anyone else out there but even if it was a boring fight him put a beating on Nate was impressive, which is no small task considering before that fight most people had Nate listed in their top 3 MW rankings. If you don't want Okami screwing up your "superfight" why not at least give him to GSP? Before people think I am insane hear me out...GSP should in all fairness be given a fight at 185 before a title shot. There are a ton of names at 185 that would be interesting. First off the top of my head would be GSP vs Maia. I would prefer the Okami vs GSP fight simply because it would give Okami the exposure he needs to develop a bit of a following. Secondly its a win win for GSP, if he wins he gets the confidence in knowing he can hang at 185 and it eliminates the controversy of him stealing Okami's title shot, if he loses it will be proof that size does matter as I believe Okami is on par with GSP in wrestling and will just be able to use his size to negate GSP's wrestling. How is this win win? Well if GSP does lose to Okami then people will finally realize the size difference and give the guy chance to put on extra weight needed before fighting Anderson. I strongly feel if GSP loses to Anderson now people will not take the size difference into consideration but just say the better striker won. Also am I the only one in the MMA world that would sell his soul to see Chael smack talk GSP leading up to a fight? Just saying there are many fights at 185 GSP could take before walking into the lions den.

I'd sell my house too see Chael talk **** leading into a fight with GSP cuz you know when GSP is pissed he fights his best.

oh man chael sonnen smack talking gsp would be hilarious! I could just see him talking about his french canadian heritage, the fact he can't sspeak english properly and many more! also gsp vs chael would be just as good and gsp vs okami for gsp that is because of chaels amazing wrestling skill as well.

I didn't even know each fighter had their own forum?

@elk:

It's not really critical if you use the fighter forum or not.  You can just make "open" threads and talk about whatever you want. But if the thread gets created in the Anderson Silva forum, we can automatically link it to other parts of the website, like Anderson Silva's page.

That's pretty cool. I was just looking at the separate forums for rankings actually. I like this site more and more every time I use it. Once it's mobile phone friendly it will be perfect.
Keep up the good work!

Just to second what Gregory said, it isn't essential to add a discussion to a fighter or bout forum, but it's just as easy as not doing it, and the advantage is it will show up on that fighter or bout page for more visitors to see.  It also makes it easy for you to relocate later on if the discussion has fallen off the forum main page. If you go to Anderson's fighter page, for example, you'll see this discussion in the feed because it's tied to his page.

That way, many years from now, you can show it to your children, and your children's children, and your children's children's children, and so forth, on and on forever :)