Sherdog’s Top 10: Greatest Middleweights

1. Anderson Silva

Silva put together a remarkable run of dominance as the UFC middleweight champion, with 14 straight victories after he obliterated Rich Franklin with a first-round knee strike at UFC 64 in 2006. It lasted until he fought Chris Weidman almost 100 pay-per-views later in 2013. Silva is considered a candidate for the greatest fighter of all-time, but what gets rarely discussed is that he was the most unlikely G.O.A.T. candidate imaginable. At 28, he was submitted via triangle choke by Daiju Takase—a limited Japanese fighter who had almost twice as many losses (seven) as wins (four). This was actually a much bigger upset than Georges St. Pierre losing to Matt Serra, as Silva was an astounding -1500 favorite. At the age of 29, Silva was stunned again by Ryo Chonan with a flying scissor heel hook. Chonan was a fairly solid fighter, unlike Takase, but aside from an exotic submission game, there was nothing special about him. Silva was a -300 favorite in that one. Both those losses seemed to reinforce the idea that no matter how tremendously talented Silva was as a striker, he was just too easy to take down and submit.

Fortunately for Silva and MMA fans around the world, he perfected his style for MMA and became much harder to defeat with grappling. Silva holds wins over numerous other champions and top contenders: He decimated Franklin with strikes twice, knocked out Vitor Belfort with a spectacular front kick, finished Yushin Okami, posted two stoppages against Chael Sonnen, choked out Dan Henderson, took out Nate Marquardt inside one round and recorded easy decision wins over top grapplers Demian Maia and Thales Leites. Silva even scored a first-round knockout against former UFC light heavyweight champion Forrest Griffin at 205 pounds. To this day, even with all the evolution and improvement in MMA, one can argue that Silva in his prime was the greatest striker the sport has ever seen. Eventually, Silva surrendered his throne to Weidman, but keep in mind, he was already 38 for their first fight and had a lot of miles on his body. None of that takes away from how amazing he was at his best.