Is Anderson Silva the Best UFC Fighter to Walk the Earth
When it comes to who the best pound-for-pound mixed martial arts fighter is in the world today, there are typically three names that rise to the top of every list: Fedor Emelianenko, Georges St. Pierre and Anderson Silva. While there is a case to be made for each fighter being thought of as the “top dog” in the world of MMA, there are also question about each man.
Certainly, no fighter has been more talked about in recent months than Anderson Silva. Unfortunately for him, it’s been for all of the wrong reasons. While he has been dominant in his most recent fights while defending his UFC middleweight championship, it’s been how he’s chosen to go about winning these fights that has caused the most discussion. In his last fight against Demian Maia at UFC 112 in April, Silva brought a chorus of boos from the crowd in Abu Dhabi as he showboated and clowned around instead of trying to deliver a knockout shot against his outmatched opponent.
It wasn’t the first time that Silva has done something like that with an opponent - a similar incident occurred in UFC 97 in April 2009 when he went the distance against Thales Leites. However, that was more of a case of an opponent not being interested in coming forward and making it a fight and Silva being content to kick and punch from long-range while piling up points. Against Maia, Silva was clearly mocking his opponent, using his defensive ability to taunt his opponent while barely being interested in attacking. It was enough to make UFC President Dana White refuse to hand Silva his belt after the fight and call it “the most horrible thing” he had ever seen in MMA.
Those are strong words by someone who has a lot of power over Silva’s career. Certainly, Silva’s reputation has been dented by his recent in-ring antics and lack of interest in putting on an entertaining show for the fans at ringside at watching at home on PPV. In many ways, Silva’s situation is similar to that of professional boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr., who is also considered to be among the best pound-for-pound fighters in his sport. Like Silva, Mayweather Jr. has been accused of relying too heavily on his unparalleled speed and defensive prowess to win fights, often frustrating and humiliating his opponents while rarely doing much more offensively than what is necessary to win rounds and pile up the judge’s points.
Much like with Mayweather Jr., a large part of Silva’s problems stem from the fact that he is often far more skilled than his opponents. Not being challenged leads fighters to atrophy and begin to get bored with their fights. In the past, Silva has moved up to light heavyweight in order to challenge himself against larger fighters with a greater potential to land power shots. However, even in these cases he has shown that his skills are simply too much for good light heavyweights like Forrest Griffin and James Irvin to overcome - his one-punch knockout of Griffin at UFC 101 standing as the prime example of this fact.
The bottom line is that the only challenge that Silva has faced since entering the UFC is staving off boredom. Unlike Emlianenko, who has fought everywhere but in UFC, there is no question that Silva has faced off against the premier fighters in his weight class and has dominated them in historic fashion: no one has a longer winning streak in UFC history than Silva. Chael Sonnen - the No. 2 ranked middleweight in MMA - will be the next challenger to the streak at UFC 117 in August. Certainly, Silva has something to prove in that bout - which could be a scary proposition for Sonnen.
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