In the superfight that everyone wanted to see, Michael Bisping says Anderson Silva would have beaten Georges St-Pierre.
Former UFC champs Silva and St-Pierre widely are considered the greatest MMA fighters of all time after reigning supreme in the middleweight and welterweight divisions, respectively. And having fought both men, Bisping has special insight on how a potential superfight could have gone.
Bisping rallied to defeat ex-middleweight king Silva in a bloody battle in 2016, which set him up for his first title shot. He knocked out Luke Rockhold to capture the title and successfully defended it against Dan Henderson. But his reign came to an end at UFC 217 when former welterweight champ St-Pierre returned from a long layoff to dethrone him and become a two-division champ. But if St-Pierre fought Silva at middleweight, Bisping leans toward “The Spider.”
“In their primes, from 2009-2012, fighting at middleweight, I’ve got to go with Anderson Silva,” Bisping said on his YouTube channel. “Now look, overall, I think it would have been an extremely close fight. Georges no doubt would have come in with a tremendous strategy. He would have implemented a lot of takedowns, and I think he would have a lot of control time. But as you know, 185, Anderson Silva in his prime, the knockout power, the inventiveness, the creativity that the man possessed, it was absolutely mind-blowing.
“And I think maybe somewhere around Round 3, Round 4, in a fight that Anderson Silva would have been losing, Georges would’ve come in for a takedown and he would’ve walked into a knee, an elbow, a punch, a kick, something, and I do think that Anderson Silva would’ve been victorious. There it is. In their primes, I think Anderson might have got the job done.”
St-Pierre’s win over Bisping marked his final MMA fight. Silva departed the UFC having won just once in his final six octagon bouts, but has found new life in the boxing ring by defeating Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. and Tito Ortiz in 2021.