What if Chael P. Sonnen wins?

Considering Silva's weakness is wrestling I would give GSP a much better chance at beating Silva than I would Silva beating Jones. I think GSP could take him down and hold him there.

 

It is extremely difficult to generate enough power to stop somebody from full guard, especially someone like Silva who has a granite chin in the first place. I don't doubt Silva will eat shots on the ground but he's not going anywhere any time soon....more importantly Silva has alien like skin and I don't think he's ever been cut in over 40 fights of MMA and Muay Thai.

As far as the doubts of Silva's guard...it may not be legendary but it certainly is good enough to threaten a flawed white belt. Sonnen being submitted 9 or so times early in his career isn't really relevant to the skills that he had when he fought Silva. Submission defense isn't like having a bad chin where if you have it you will have it forever..Randy Couture was submitted by tomato cans early in his career, by the end of it even Rodrigo Nogueria wasn't a huge threat to submit him.

Sonnen developed quite a nice submission grappling game, especially his guard passing...injuries and testosterone aside with that particular fight.

Silva also submitted a BJJ black belt in Travis Lutter which was Lutter's bread and butter, as well as showcasing decent scrambling abilities and sweeps against guys like Nate Marquardt



The biggest issue with the fight is that Jones is a HW masquerading as a LHW, and Silva as MWS pointed out is a career middleweight.

Even worse, Silva is much closer to size as GSP than he is Jones, as he spent a rather large amount of his career fighting at 168lbs-175lbs. He even made 175lbs as recently as the first Okami fight shortly before making his UFC debut which is why I find it odd that GSP will not agree to a catchweight fight at that weight.


GSP is a lot larger than he leads on. Nate Marquardt is about the same size as GSP and he was known as a pretty big middleweight...and I've heard from his manager Firas Zahabi he's been walking around near 197lbs.


The last I heard about the potential Jones-Silva showdown is that Silva wanted a compromise at around 195lbs, however I think there's no chance Jones makes that weight, he has absolutely no more water he can possibly lose and no muscle either. I"d assume Jones would be close to 240 if not 250 if he bulked up. Right now I'm fairly certain he deliberately avoids working out his legs so he can stay at that weight and will bulk up when he wants to move to heavyweight.

 

Take him down? Possibly.

Hold him there? Doubtful.


TFK

 

I know a lot of people say this, but I don't necessarily believe it. He's a big 205er, no doubt about it, but I've never heard of him having any problems making weight. It's not like he's Rumble Johnson, killing himself to fight in a weightclass he clearly doesn't belong in.

205 is clearly Jones' optimal fighting weight. He's tall, he's lean and he has the perfect build for light heavyweight. He's not overly muscular so he doesn't have the cardio problems more heavily muscled fighters have. If he were to move up in weight, he'd be bulking up with weight\muscle that would not be beneficial to his body.

Maybe one day he'll grow out of the weightclass, but to call him a heavyweight because he's a big 205er and has cleaned out the division isn't really fair to him.

TFK

 

Do you guys think Jones could deal with the heavyweights such as JDS or Cain? Jones isn't a small guy and has more athletic ability than them

 

Agree, Watching Jones on TUF, he's not walking around at 230. The dude has a ridiculously thin frame

 

The thing none of thos photos show is his pencil thin legs

 

I think he'd beat them pretty handily.

 

Thin legs are a little more involved than just absorbing leg kicks.

 

Anthony mostly touched on what I was talking about earlier. He makes that weight because of his lower body is deliberately underdeveloped. Both of his brothers are NFL lineman, this guy isn't a runt of his family....he's a massive guy..and you can easily see this when you look at those pictures that Anthony posted...he's just as big if not bigger than a lot of heavyweights.

It was like when that wrestler with no legs won the NCAAs a few years back, a lot of the wrestlers I talked to pointed out how it wasn't as big of a disadvantage as the layman thought it was because he was so massive compared to the guys he was wrestling.

All Jones would have to do to fight comfortably at heavyweight is start powerlifting.

 

When Jones starts having trouble making 205, then it's time to move up. But I haven't heard a single report of him having anything close to a hard weight cut. His body is perfect for 205. If he moved up to heavyweight tomorrow, he wouldn't be fighting at his optimal weight, so it would be foolish for him to do so. I'm not saying he couldn't beat most heavyweight, because he probably can. His talent is just on another level. But for him to move up for the sake of moving up makes no sense.

TFK