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Whats better? Struggle and finish a fight, or dominate but not finish???
I think we need to reach a consensus on this. People hate on Fedor for struggling against all kinds of fighters, but he usually delivers. People hate on GSP for not finishing fights or for forcing the issue on the wrestling even though he might not finish a fight. People hate on Anderson and Machida for only commiting to exchanges and fights when they go exactly according to their counterstrike game and leading to some very "dull" fights. Hereīs what I think:
Fedor Emelenianenko:
Record 31 - 1 - 0 (Win - Loss - Draw) ( 1 NC )
8 (T)KOs ( 25.81 %)
16 Submissions ( 51.61 %)
7 Decisions ( 22.58 %)
And those 7 decisions have all been unanimous. His lone loss as we all know doesnt really "count". Even though he usually has exciting fights, has been in "trouble" against the likes of Mark Hunt, Randleman, Coleman, Rogers, Arlovski, etc... He comes back and finishes a fight via submission or ko. No matter how perplexed fighters seem after they thought they were winning, they invariably end up losing without a shred of a doubt because they were either unconscious or tapping due to sheer pain. Makes you doubt the definition of "trouble". Doing it 31 times to all different kinds of opponents constitutes a sample size large enough to not consider luck in the equation. Not one of his opponents have ever thought they actually beat him in any of his decision wins either.
This leads to a 77.41% finish rate with a clear 22.58% decision win rate.
Anderson Silva:
Record 25 - 4 - 0 (Win - Loss - Draw)
Wins 15 (T)KOs ( 60 %)
4 Submissions ( 16 %)
6 Decisions ( 24 %)
Losses 2 Submissions ( 50 %)
1 Decisions ( 25 %)
1 Other ( 25 %
Anderson on the other hand many times seems vastly "superior" to his lesser opponents such as Patrick Cote and Thales Leites, yet he fails to finish them in spite of the talent gap. He is happy to dance around and wait hours for them to attack him exactly as he wishes or else we get no action, no finish and no entertainment (unless you are entertained by his dancing around, which is pretty good). When fighters comply with his wishes, we know what usually happens:
76% finish rate and 24% clear decision wins (all unanimous as well).
Georges St. Pierre:
Record 19 - 2 - 0 (Win - Loss - Draw)
Wins 8 (T)KOs ( 42.11 %)
4 Submissions ( 21.05 %)
6 Decisions ( 31.58 %)
1 Other ( 5.26 %)
Losses 1 (T)KOs ( 50 %)
1 Submissions ( 50 %)
GSP usually dominates all his opponents and "takes it to them". He used to be one of the most dynamic fighters out there, but since "getting caught" by Matt Serra, he is now content to take down all of his opponents and outwrestle/pound them and beat them on the ground even if that is the opponents perceived strength (ex: Matt Hughes, Jon Fitch, BJ Penn, Matt Serra). He has failed to finish 2 of his last 3 opponents despite dominating them thoroughly for 5 rounds. He seems vastly superior, yet is unable to finish some of these fights. Still his dominance is very clear and leads to this:
63.16% finish rate and a 31.58% clear decision wins (BJ Penn I being the lone blemish).
Lyoto Machida:
Record 16 - 0 - 0 (Win - Loss - Draw)
Wins 5 (T)KOs ( 31.25 %)
2 Submissions ( 12.5 %)
9 Decisions ( 56.25 %)
Machida is very similar to Anderson in that he needs fighters to comply with his fighting style in order to finish fights. He has finished some good names, such as Soko, Thiago Silva, and Rashad Evans with both Soko and Silva playing into his strategy. He has failed to finish fighters of much lesser quality such as Nakamura, Heath, Hoger, White, Greco, etc. He has seemed vastly superior to these fighters as well, yet was unable to finish the fights. This leads to a:
33.75% finish rate and a 56.25% clear decision win rate with Shogun obviously being the big asterisk.
So after this long ass and boring analysis comes the question. What is better? To dominate and seem superior or to finish a damn fight no matter what happens before?
My personal take is Iīm a little old school. You fight to prove to the other guy that you are better than him. You fight for him to end on his back not knowing what happened, but simply knowing you are better than him. You fight to make him surrender and admit his inferiority. You donīt fight to keep an opponent at bay with your superior skills for 15 or 25 minutes. If you are much much better than another fighter, than you prove it by finishing him. You might struggle a little along the way, because it is most definitely harder to finish a tough mother fucker who is trying to do the same to you, but you do it anyways.
That is why people fight on the streets, and I feel it is why this sport got started in the first place. I think it should be valued over dominant decisions. This is not a who is the best P4P thread, as that will always be up for debate, but simply to try to make a point that finishing is harder than dominating, and should bring mad respect to the people that accomplish it. Finishing is the ultimate demonstration of superiority no matter how you do it.
Thoughts?
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