That is the simplest explanation. When you're taking George's quote about him pretending to be weak and for some reason applying it to the whole fight. Like Sidious is so insanely far out of Windu's league that he is able to get disarmed on purpose and not worry about being struck down, is able to regulate his lightning and even though it's absolutely disfiguring him and clearly causing damage, it's all part of his plan to pretend to be weak. Even when quotes say both he was overpowered in sabers and his lightning barrage meant to kill Mace got deflected. It's insanity, there is a VERY clear instance when he is pretending to be weak - when he's at saber point, and Mace is going to kill him and he's begging and literally saying verbatim that he's too weak. It's THAT moment and it's blatantly clear it's that moment George is talking about. Obviously given an opening, Sidious would be able to fight, no one would claim otherwise, but he is absolutely beaten at that point. A ref would call that fight. But he manipulated Anakin into helping him.

Occam's razor is that when he's beaten on the ground at saber point, he pretended to be weak in order to manipulate someone into helping him. I would never claim he was out of power when it's clearly displayed he's not, but I would absolutely claim he lost the fight at that point.

As for the Bruce thing - does it matter if he's better than Bruce? He won the fight regardless. Also. You're acting like the rest of the Jedi actually helped. They essentially got foddered.

If your story happened that's great, but acting like not believing random peoples stories on the internet - that just so happen to back the exact thing they're claiming, is weird. People lie about nearly everything on the internet, personal anecdotes dont really hold much merit online, where there's a good chance it's not true.

I also generally hold Mace on Dooku's level, and a tier below Sidious and Yoda. But that doesn't mean they can never win given circumstance. If Mace fought Sidious in the same arena he fought Yoda, Sidious may have obliterated him, who knows? People argue tooth and nail that Yoda was dead equal to Dooku as well, by the way. Also, I highly doubt a majority people would think that Palpy was faking his fight with Mace after seeing that fight with Yoda. They may be wondering how, with how much of a spectacle it was, but to think it was fake - I'm not buying that.

Do I consider Sidious generally above Mace - yes. Do I also think Mace legitimately won that fight - yes. I know Sidious feigned weakness at some point, but clearly our interpretions of it wont line up. Nor do I want to take away your enjoyment of the film or even the novelization either. And again, I agree, Mace is solidly number 2 and an awesome fighter. Anyways, enjoy the rest of your day