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Recommended Stories. Patriots Wire. NBC Sports Chicago. Rockets Wire. NBC Sports Boston. Lebron Wire. He will step into a cage for the first time since March and discover, in the heat of battle, if he has got anything left. In the process, he will, as is his custom, take punches to the face, shake them off and continue to walk forward to land some of his own. A man of simple, violent pleasures, there is perhaps no fighter as pure as Wanderlei Silva.
He does away with the pretence and gets right down to the nub of the situation: my fists, your face. Now, Silva, twenty-one years after making his pro MMA debut, connects the fingers on both hands, rolls his knuckles and looks to simultaneously roll back the years. But then Wanderlei looks across the Bellator cage at Chael Sonnen and sees not a young wrestler about to enthusiastically dump him on his backside but another year-old, a product of a bygone era.
It was a wrap after just 98 seconds. The next time they met, however, it went longer, lasting an entire minute round. But that only meant one thing, of course. Less bloody, less marked up around the face, he nonetheless had to contend with Silva in every area of the ring, soaking up punches, knees and kicks, and ended the fight having injured his shoulder. From the off, he surprised Silva by darting across the ring and attempting to hoist him off his feet and slam him on his back.
Only the move failed. This led to a stalemate during which Japanese officials scurried around ringside and raised their hands, just in case Wanderlei, positioned up high, tumbled over the top rope. While Rampage tried to regroup, Silva stepped back into the ring a final time in —this time at Pride Shockwave , on December 31, as a heavyweight.
For Silva, it was another chance to shine against a feared striker. In retrospective, perhaps it was also a byproduct of a healthier-than-usual ego; taking on a fighter with the skill, power and chin of Hunt is not something done lightly, no matter if he was new to the sport or not. Add in the size advantage and you have a whole different animal to contend with. Yet Silva signed up, stepped in and in the eyes of many delivered the kind of performance that should have seen him win the bout.
Yet, he did not; the judges awarded the victory to Hunt, who would go on to take on another star in Filipovic, winning by split decision. Silva would end the year by tasting defeat for the first time in more than four years, going in and 1 in his career. Perhaps in an attempt to get back to his winning ways, Silva entered the second Pride Middleweight Grand Prix tournament, drawing Hidehiko Yoshida in a rematch of their first meeting in the Grand Prix. So, on April 23, Silva stepped into the ring at Pride Total Elimination and once again bested Yoshida in a tough scrap that saw Silva escape with a split-decision victory.
In truth, the arguments for a Yoshida victory had just as much merit as those favoring Silva; the judoka had hung tough and fought as hard as anyone ever had. But in the end, Silva impressed the judges enough to advance to the quarterfinal round on June That night, at Pride Final Conflict , Arona got his wish and defeated Silva via unanimous decision in a bout that saw him take Silva down and control him for most of the bout.
With everything on the line—most importantly pride—Silva barely edged out Arona via split decision in a fight that was hard to score. In the end, it was a very close bout that could have gone either way. I can say that it was one of the few times I felt the two-chapter series left much unresolved. Silva ended the year with his championship intact and his career record standing at 1 , but he had lost his first fight to non-heavyweight in a long time.
After a close call in , Silva came into bold and aggressive, entering the Pride Openweight Grand Prix. Fujita had been one of the few fighters to ever make the reigning heavyweight champion, Fedor Emelianenko , look human. He had lost via submission, by cut and by decision, but he had never been honestly stopped by a KO or TKO that was a result of strikes. Then, Silva ran all over him, ending the bout at of Round 1 via TKO due to punches not to mention kicks, knees and everything else he could throw.
It was shocking to see a heavyweight—who had taken brutal knees to the head from Mark Kerr — get blasted from pillar to post by the smaller Silva. But that is exactly what happened, and Silva advanced to the next round and his next opponent, while Fujita looked around the ring from the floor, stunned and thoroughly beaten down for the first time in his career.
It was also the last time we would really see Silva in vintage form, because waiting for him in the next round was a rematch with Cro Cop—only this time Filipovic had honed his skills to a razor edge. If Silva thought that his first bout with the Croatian was a good blueprint for their second dance, he was sadly mistaken.
This time around, Cro Cop was on a mission and utterly focused on the task at hand. At of Round 1, his focus saw him rewarded as he leveled Silva with a head-kick KO that left him flat on his back.
Silva was for the year, with his total record now standing at 1 , but the seasons had changed for The Axe Murderer. After the clean and brutal knockout at the hands or feet, as it were of Cro Cop, Silva jumped right back on the horse, this time back at middleweight, giving a rematch to the dangerous Dan Henderson, who had in turn just claimed the Pride Welterweight Championship in by winning the welterweight version of the Pride Grand Prix series.
Never short on ambition, Henderson was looking to become the only fighter in the history of MMA to own two different titles in two weight divisions in a premier organization—at the same time. Some fighters age poorly, while others seem to bloom; Henderson is of the latter species. In his rematch with Silva at Pride 33 on February 24, he was the sharper man with the heavier hands, throwing punches in equal number yet landing more, including the savage left hand that dropped Silva flat on his back at of Round 3.
Henderson was now in the history books, and Silva was no longer the middleweight champion. The loss also marked his second defeat by violent KO; even though he was going out on his shield to the top fighters of the day, he was also losing much of what had made him so great.
His whirlwind style had been a crowd-pleasing mechanism for victory in the past—intimidating and damaging—but where once there had been danger, there were now holes to be exploited by future opponents, if they had the daring and the power to make the most of them. Styles do indeed make fighters, but only for as long as the fighter can make the style work for him with any kind of consistency.
When Pride FC was bought out by the UFC, and Silva was pitted against Chuck Liddell in a long-overdue fight, we found there was still enough left in Silva to make the style work in the face of the longer reach, brutal power and cool resolve of The Iceman.
Part of what made this fight so fantastic was that, despite their age and the fact that the bout was about four years past being ideal, both men had lost their last two fights and their championships and were desperate for victory. Now, all that they had left was each other and a little meeting in the Octagon that would turn out to be Fight of the Year for It happened on December 29 at UFC 79, and to actually see both legends in the Octagon, at the same time, with bad intentions filling the air like electrical current during a storm, well, it was one of those moments that fight fans dream of.
In one of the more two-sided bouts of the night, Silva and Liddell took turns rattling each other's head side-with heavy shots. At one point in the bout, Liddell had Silva backed up against the cage, stringing together straight punches that were bouncing off his face over and over. Then, in typical Silva form, he came roaring back, throwing hard and making Liddell give ground. Silva had his moments as well, even dropping Liddell with blows. But in the end, Liddell landed the harder, cleaner shots in addition to going the extra mile by securing some takedowns—something he had never felt pressured to do before then.
Silva and Liddell really brought out the best in each other; in defeat, Silva made an incredible first impression to UFC fans, and Liddell was finally back in the win column. It had been a grueling fight, but most felt Jardine had won Rounds 2 and 3 in a bout that saw him come into his own. When it was announced that he would be fighting Silva, it looked as if the UFC was going to use the former Pride champion to build up one of its up-and-comers. Silva had lost three in a row, and while he was still a legend, it seemed like his best days were behind him.
Sadly for Jardine, Silva proved that those who forget the lessons of the past are doomed to repeat it, and against Silva, that means a lot of pain. Jardine was too loose in the Octagon that night, lingering with his hands down too long, in close range with a fighter as powerful as Silva with nothing but a token defense. Silva let his fists go, caught The Dean with hard blows, knocked him to his knees and then to his back, climbed aboard, grabbed Jardine by the throat and proceeded to pound any remaining consciousness right out of him.
When Silva stepped off, Jardine looked stiff as a board and in a very bad way. Thankfully, he was all right, but as we have seen with many fighters, such violent endings can have a serious effect on the career of any fighter, no matter how young or old. Silva was back. His intuition to finish was as strong as ever, and his destruction of Jardine—which lasted a total of 36 seconds—once again proved that the idea of MMA math is never solid enough to bet on with any seriousness.
But we learned that the idea that a fighter who has lost twice to one opponent can never avenge those losses is false. For their third fight at UFC 92, Jackson had his defense tight and caught the ever-reckless Silva with a beautiful counter left hook that knocked him cold at just of Round 1.
Often, matches are made based on the consistency of styles that certain fighters employ. In this case, it was the power and poise of Franklin against the whirlwind of violence that was Silva. Franklin won Round 1 by being the busier and more accurate fighter, delivering kicks to the body and some ground-and-pound before ending the frame by landing some stiff blows.
Silva bounced back and won Round 2 by maintaining the pressure, buckling Franklin twice and trapping him against the fence. Franklin battled back near the end, but Silva had done enough damage to claim the round. In Round 3, both men went for broke in spurts, but Franklin was the fresher fighter, landing the cleaner blows and just being sharp enough to be ahead on points as the fight ended. Bisping showed up to fight and implemented a stick-and-move game plan that also threw in some successful takedowns to score points while keeping Silva in a position that took away the chance of a knockout.
Then, Silva came back in Rounds 2 and 3, pressing the action and winning the rounds off the strength of his kicks and punches, not to mention a close submission attempt via guillotine choke in Round 2 and a late flurry in Round 3 that knocked Bisping down and almost out.
All the rounds were close, but it was Silva who came close to ending the fight on two occasions, which was probably the difference that saw him awarded the victory. Silva made his first middleweight debut and was back in the win column, bringing his career record to 1 and proving there was still some fight left in him.
Leben was a slow brawler with a rock-hard chin who was big in heart but short on any kind of defensive skills. Incredibly exciting as he was, he seemed like a poor bet in a fight against a legend like Silva. And in the beginning of the fight, it looked like Leben was simply going to get blown out of the water. Silva caught the ever-catchable Leben early, rocking him and from there looking to run him over.
Sadly for Silva, Leben had more gears available than most thought. He caught Silva coming in with some serious haymakers, and after Silva face-planted on the canvas, Leben landed more shots until the fight was called.
Silva had lost yet another fight in the UFC, against one of the members of the first season of The Ultimate Fighter , which may or may not have added some shame to the defeat. Much of that was due to the excellent takedown defense he had developed over the last few years. This fight unfolded like most expected. The larger, more powerful Cro Cop basically had his way with the kg champion.
He sat down on his strikes without worrying about getting taken to the ground, which was a major change from their first bout. Cro Cop brought the brutal five-plus-minute beating to an end with his patented left high kick.
Liddell was the biggest figure in the sport, by a wide margin. Of course, the politics of competing fight promotions prevented the bout from coming to fruition when it was at its ripest stage. The problem, of course, is that both Liddell and Silva were riding a two-fight losing streaks at that time. Liddell and Silva turned back the clock and engaged in a timeless slugfest. Liddell ultimately prevailed, but the battle was the easy choice for Fight of the Night and also won Fight of the Year.
May 24, — UFC 84 Result — KO1 Fresh off the heels of his Fight of the Year effort against Liddell, Silva once again turned back the clock with a scorching knockout of Keith Jardine in a scant 38 seconds, making it one of the fastest knockouts of his illustrious career.
UFC light heavies were too big, he reasoned, so he wanted to test himself against guys closer to his natural size. Of course, he made the move in a two-step process, first taking a lb catchweight fight against former UFC Middleweight Champion Rich Franklin. This was the perfect litmus test for Silva, both in terms of seeing how his body would react to cutting the weight, without actually having to go all the way down to lbs, and also to test himself against one of the greatest middleweights of our era.
Silva and Franklin engaged in a back-and-forth war, with Franklin controlling most of the action with his precision stick-and-move tactics. Silva constantly chased his foe, and when he was able to close the distance, there was no doubt who was landing the harder shots.
He actually came close to finishing Franklin in the final round, after landing a couple of game-changing bombs. But it was too little too late, as Franklin was awarded the unanimous decision win. Nonetheless, the bout was selected as the Fight of the Night.
Bisping was one of the most exciting young contenders and this fight would determine whether Silva could resurrect his championship ways in a division 20 lbs south of his career fighting weight. Bisping tried to follow the blueprint laid down by Franklin, employing a hunt-and-peck strategy, while remaining focused on not engaging in unnecessary exchanges with his dangerous foe.
It almost worked. Bisping appeared to be on his way to winning a close unanimous decision until Silva caught him on the temple with one of his trademark looping bombs. The shot almost ended the fight, forcing Bisping to get on his bicycle and get out of dodge. The win solidified Silva as a legitimate threat in the lb division. The bout had explosion written all over it, and the fighters did not disappoint.
Silva attacked Leben at the opening bell, just as promised. He is an amazing competitor in that way. Knowing that he landed a clean shot, Silva attempted to secure the Thai plumb to unload a barrage of knees. Leben countered with a series of left uppercuts right on the button. The first rocked Silva, as evidenced by the fact that he inexplicably continued searching for the plumb, rather than backing away and regrouping.
The second turned out the lights in what was the most devastating knockout of to date. Wanderlei Silva - Tribute to a Legend. I promise violence. No problem.
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