I realize that you can't extrapolate one moment in the fight over the entire 25 minutes. I was using that as example because its a visual example. The thing is that it wasn't the only insitence where Silva got Leites backup in a position where he could have aggressively pressed the action. He didn't. He kept him off-balance a lot with those side-kicks, but rarely seemed to use that as an oppportunity to close, or to counter with a high kick at some point.
The reason I think the gif is at least worth concidering is that the point of using something fancy like that in an actual fight should be to take your opponent by surprise and create an opening. Silva did create that opening. But you can tell my his body language after throwing the "kick" that he never intended to even try to follow it up. So you can argue about the distance and his position, but he never seems to have intended to follow it up, regardless if it knocked Leites off balance (as it did), tripped him, whatever. This was the case with all the shimmying, dancing, shoulder-shaking and so on that Silva did through the fight. It was intended as show-boating, not a way to open his opponent up. I don't really have much issue with showboating in a fight, but when someone is showboating and not using the opportunities it may create, I don't see how that fight can be seen as aggressive throughout the fight and attempting to exploit any opporunity. That's simply a contridiction to me.
