This is the most casual fan **** ever said.
Izzy's footwork alone is masterful. The dude barely gets hit ever and yall want to see him "swang and bang" like every tap-out wearing meathead. Izzy ain't a knockout artist (though he did knock out the dude who stood and banged with Romero).
Rob is a beast and not taking anything away from him, but Izzy's ability to slip punches and keep you at a distance in every fight is what makes him the champ and it's insane to watch. You ever tried to dodge something that's thrown at you from less than a foot away? That **** is harder than standing there and taking it.
Swanging and banging isn't the way to go unless that's the only option you have.
It's not a "purist" vs "casual" argument. You mentioned "swanging and banging", but Anderson was not the "swanging and banging" guy, that doesn't make sense in this context.
Anderson was one of the best finishers in the history of the UFC and like 90% of the time when he finished he did it in a way that had everyone going crazy. Every Anderson Silva fight was an event, you knew some crazy **** was about to happen and almost every single time he delivered. For years on end. Without "swanging and banging". Skillfully taking dudes apart. I don't think
Davey Magoo
is wrong at all to have the opinion that Anderson was more fun to watch.
If you appreciate Izzy's footwork feints and countering such that you had a blast watching him fight Romero and Vettori and Whittaker (the second time) then that's dope, but I also think you're insane to suggest that somehow enjoying Anderson Silva's fights more than Izzy's is something only a "casual" would say.
The one thing I'll say for Izzy though, Anderson also had some boring fights too like the Thales Leites fight, the Patrick Cote fight and the Demian Maia fight. Those represented a very small portion of his prime UFC run though, literally 3 out of 16 fights. Izzy has had as many meh fights in a shorter career, which is the point that I think was being made. More often than not Anderson delivered something crazy and it created this anticipation around his fights that I probably haven't seen/felt since then outside of maybe Mcgregor at his peak. Izzy is just more of a crapshoot at this point. You can fully appreciate his skills while also acknowledging that some of his fights aren't exactly knocking people's socks off. Both of those things can be true.
Comparing strength of schedule for fighters from different eras is really tough to do.
The sport keeps evolving at a breakneck pace and the skill level and overall athleticism keeps growing. 15 years ago fighters like Rich Franklin, Nate Marquardt and Yushin Okami were considered top shelf fighters. 15 years later they don’t look like great wins by today’s standards.
15 years from now, they’ll be saying the same thing about Robert Whittaker, Kelvin Gastelum and Marvin Vettori.
Yeah fighters exist in their eras, it is what it is. If we sent Demian Maia or Jacare in a time machine back to 1993 they'd probably whoop up on Royce Gracie and Shamrock and all them dudes and be known as greats of the sports. But they couldn't do it that in their own eras because as good as they were, they were fighting against other fighters who'd evolved with the times as well.
Comparing Izzy's strength of schedule to Anderson's or saying the fighters are better now is irrelevant. Fighters exist in their eras and should be judged based on what they did against the fighters of their era. With that said, the argument is just that Anderson used to style on dudes in a way that was generally more exciting and appealing than Izzy.
If you're a fan of Izzy and feel he's more exciting then fair enough, but I don't think saying Anderson was more fun to watch is even a
slightly hot take. I mean **** I like Izzy too, it's not like anyone is saying he's some bum, but in terms of excitement Anderson's run was something else. Maybe Izzy can match him in time though, who knows.
