According to Joe ‘Stitch Em Up’ Schilling, a man who has been training with Nick Diaz, Joe Schilling is a better kickboxer than Anderson Silva. “I think it would be embarrassing for him in there with me,” he said to John Noe O’Regan of Bloody Elbow, matter of factly. “The more I have studied Anderson Silva for this fight camp of Nick’s the more I think he is good at kickboxing for MMA but in a professional kickboxing fight he would get wasted.”
But before you judge Schilling as self-important, keep in mind that he believes just about everyone in Nick’s gym is a better kickboxer than Anderson.
“. . . [E]verybody I brought in for Nick to spar with is a better kickboxer than the guy he is going to fight, you know?” he asked, rhetorically. “Artem is a better kickboxer than Anderson, I’m a better kickboxer than Anderson, Chidi has got even better movement than Anderson. It was a good camp. I was trying to knock Nick out in sparring all the time, and not knocking him out.”
Yes, every man who has ever kicked anything, then stepped into a gym with Nick Diaz, is a better kickboxer than Anderson Silva. That it troubling, even paradigm-shifting, given that several apparently delusional fans regard Silva as one of the greatest fighters of all-time. It is also concerning that the UFC would pair Nick Diaz with Anderson Silva when they had an entire roster of better kickboxers to choose from, all of whom were merely waiting around and doing some sparring at a gym with Nick Diaz.
