the rum soaked fist: internal martial arts forum

That was a fantastic fight. Silva doing all the kung fu styles - 52 blocks, etc. He even spent a lot of one round fighting out of classical San Ti Shi!

At 43 against a guy half his age that was pretty amazing.

I shoulda watched this one live if Israel is the "next Silva", one of the all time greats and most entertaining/creative fighters. I suspect Israel tried to hold back from trying to finish or submit his idol. Hopefully baton is passed.

GrahamB wrote: He even spent a lot of one round fighting out of classical San Ti Shi!

I gotta go back and see that...

They hugged at the end and silva said equivalent of the Batton is passed.

I'm watching it now, insanely entertaining fight.

Loved it.

It looks like he's taking that "san ti" posture largely to keep distance facing those kicks. I don't know if you're familiar with the "six doors" theory of fighting, but basically you can't keep them all closed at once, you HAVE to leave half your doors open all the time. The idea is that they'll attack the open doors but you'll know they'll be attacking them so when the attack comes in it takes less processing to move to close them. I'm more familiar with it from western weapons fighting than CMA.

So that santi LOOKS really open but the distance means that's even more time to respond and close-up/counter.

I loved the 52 blocks. Adesanya said afterward he knew Silva was baiting him with hands down to try a big shot, so he resisted. It's sad Silva's career has got to end soon. He was one of the best and most creative/entertaining champions.

I thought Silva did pretty well for a 43 year old guy.

Seems he plans on having one more fight back in Brazil. I hope for his sake he calls it quits then. I would hate to see him end up like Liddell.