Anderson "The Spider" Silva is now entering the last chapter of his storied mixed martial arts career.
Since his first professional fight in 2000, a split decision loss to Luiz Azeredo, Silva has gone 22 - 3 with thirteen of his wins coming by way of knockout.
Along the way he has accumulated three middleweight championship belts in Shooto, Cage Rage, and the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC).
Silva has been a dominating force inside the octagon and is arguably the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world today.
At 6'2" and 185 pounds he is the prototype for a new wave MMA fighter. His pinpoint muay thai striking and world class jiu-jitsu ground game fuse together to form one of the most dynamic skill sets in the entire sport.
The most special thing about Silva, however, is that he appears to be getting stronger and smarter with each fight and he shows no signs of slowing down at the age of 33.
In the UFC he is now 7 - 0, including three successful title defenses. All seven victories have been won by Silva in two rounds or less and he has finished each fight either by submission, knockout, or technical knockout. He has been dominant and largely untested.
His UFC victories are basically a who's who list of great fighters including Chris Leben, former UFC middleweight champion Rich Franklin (twice),
- B/R Ticket Guide
Silva is once again readying himself for what will be his fourth title defense in the UFC. He is set to take on Canadian striker Patrick Cote at UFC 90 on October 25, 2008. A victory over Cote would give Silva eight straight victories in the UFC and tie the all-time record held by Royce Gracie and Jon Fitch.
Recently, the news that Silva would be calling it quits and retiring when his contract was fulfilled sent shockwaves through the MMA community.
According to MMA.tv, Silva's manager Ed Soares recently said, "Anderson's goal is to retire when he is 35. He still has six fights on his contract and he doesn't turn 35 for another 18 months. I know he will finish his six fights before he considers hanging up his gloves."
Why would arguably the best fighter in the world consider retirement in his mid-thirties?
First of all, in combat sports the window of opportunity for success and fortune is constantly closing. The bodies of these athletes get to a point where they can simply no longer handle the demands of the sport.
The years of getting battered and beaten in training and in competition takes a toll even on the great fighters. There is also a fine line between competing with a diminishing skill set and putting yourself in danger. Some fighters like Ken Shamrock simply do not know when to quit.
Former UFC champions Chuck Liddell and Matt Hughes are now on the downslope of their careers. Both have now lost three of their last four fights. Silva doesn't want to be in the same boat as Liddell and Hughes. He wants to go out on top and he wants to be in good health when he leaves.
While his legacy and his health are important his family is his number one priority. Mike Chiappetta of NBCSports.com has also spoken with Silva's manager Ed Soares. In a recent article he writes that "... Silva has a desire to spend more time with his family. Silva has four children and spends much of his time on the road training and competing."
As it stands now he has six remaining fights on his contract and then he will bow out. The aforementioned fight with Cote will knock the remaining balance on his contract down to just five fights. It is now the UFC management's job to line up five opponents that will send Silva off into the sunset.
Who could those five potential future opponents be? Here are some possibilities and the likelihood of them happening:
To finish the article click over to TopGunMMA: http://www.topgunmma.com/viewArticle.php?articleID=10610.
Your patience is appreciated.
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about 1 month ago
Agh, why do we have to go to a different site to finish your article? I do MMA coverage for a few different places, including the Houston Chronicle, but I don't make readers leave this site to finish reading.
from about 1 month ago
Just ignore the above comment. I haven't had my Sunday nap today. :-)
from about 1 month ago
Just click over and bear with me. You'll be fine.
about 1 month ago
Good overview of whats to come for The Spider. Your list of possible fights was pretty exhaustive,which was great, yet I am surprised you left Chuck Liddell off that list. Is it because Liddell would be crazy to take it and thats why it wouldn't happen? Thanks for your leadership on the site!
from about 1 month ago
Not only would Liddell be be crazy to take it but Silva would be too.
Beating Liddell would essentially accomplish nothing at this point. Silva has said he doesn't want to go after the 205 pound title because of Machida anyways.
Also, Liddell is no longer a contender for the 205 crown so if Silva did want the 205 belt it wouldn't be Liddell he would be paired up with.
I don't see him fighting anywhere but middleweight for his last 5 fights... The odds of him fighting at 205 are very slim but the odds of him ever facing Liddell are even smaller.
from about 1 month ago
Anderson has already said that he's accomplished everything he wants to do with fighting, so I have to think that he'll be looking for interesting fights from here on out. A fight with Chuck Liddell is very interesting to most casual MMA fans, and more importantly (to Zuffa, at least), it would be a big fight in terms of the buyrate. It's easy to market and easy to sell, and it doesn't even need to involve the title picture.
At this point, Liddell is no more than 2 big wins away from a title shot. In fact, he may never be more than 1 or 2 wins away from a shot. Because of his reputation and his popularity, he would get an undeserved title shot far quicker than most fighters. I may not like it and hardcore fans may not like it, but they aren't catering to me. If a Liddell/Silva fight will bring in massive amounts of PPV money, you can rest assured that they will try to make the fight.
I do believe there are still some interesting fights for Silva at 185, but in terms of drawing viewers (and making money), none of them approach the kind of business a Silva/Liddell or Silva/Wanderlei fight would do. Given his recent comments and the fact that he's pretty much accomplished everything he wanted to, I have to believe that Anderson is looking for big paydays, the kind of money that comes with being a big draw, and he's going to have to fight big name opponents to do that. My dream fight is Anderson Silva vs. Fedor Emelianenko, but that's a pipe dream. Doesn't mean I can't dream, though! :-)
from about 1 month ago
lol Jeremy,
fedor VS Anderson as your dream match... I think to call it a "match" you're being very kind to Anderson... He'd get swarmed and squashed like a bug. There is a profound difference between dominating the weakest division in the sport where you're the biggest guy with the longest reach, and facing the world's best fighter 2 weight classes above you who sat on top of the world rankings way before you ever cracked the top 20 even in your weak division.
A noob (relatively) like Travis Lutter took Anderosn down and nearly pounded him out. Hendo won the first round easily, but had no sub defense (because he is a wrestler who never learned). Look at how fedor handles a guy who is a better Hendo, bigger, higher ranked, better wrestler who trains Hendo! etc etc etc Lindland... Fedor, armbar, 2 minutes.
If you can't beat hendo in 2 minutes of round 1, you have no business being in the ring with E-Fed.
(At 185 Anderson is #1, at 205 he is possibly top 3, at HW he is outside top 5, Barnett, Nog, Werdum would beat him of course.)
from about 1 month ago
I didn't say Anderson would beat Fedor, I just said it's a dream fight for me. I think Silva would be a much tougher fight for Fedor than anyone else on the planet right now, and I think Fedor would be the toughest opponent Silva could face. No matter who you ask, Fedor and Silva are the top two p4p fighters on the planet right now. That's what makes it a dream match.
from about 1 month ago
I think Barnett would provide a tougher test for E-Fed than Anderson. So would Arlovski and Werdum. I wouldn't give Anderson a chance in hell VS AA or Werdum.
Werdum's BJJ is vastly superior to Anderson's, he is a LOT bigger and has sick takedowns and top game (2 area where Anderson showed weaknesses -being on the bottom, and being taken down) Werdum's chin is disturbingly good as well. Anderson is a better striker, but never faced anyone ha;f as big nor with that kind of chin.
I think Werdum is Fedor's only real challenge.
from about 1 month ago
We're gonna have to agree to disagree on Silva vs. Fedor, at least in terms of who is better right now.
I'm not going to convince you that Silva is the best fighter in the world right now, and you won't convince me that Fedor is the best. I think Fedor is the best fighter of all time and nothing can take that away, but right now, in 2008, I think Anderson Silva is the best, and most MMA journalists believe he's the best.
Granted, that's mostly because of the lack of top competition for Fedor over the past two years (Sylvia excluded, I guess), and if he runs through Arlovski and Barnett or comes to the UFC and finishes Couture or Nogueira or Werdum, then it's very likely he'd be back on top. Unless, of course, Silva faces top shelf fighters as well.
It's an interesting debate, to say the least.
from about 1 month ago
This is part of why I love MMA so much. Arguing about the hypothetical. Nice work guys.
from about 1 month ago
Jeremy,
My biggest problem with Anderson is that he is the same size as Fedor (220 and as heavy as 230 according to himself on radio sherdog, and he is 6'2, 2 inches taller than fedor. fedor's current walk weight is 220)
So, when someone sand-begs lighter weight class (like winning special Olympics when you're not handicapped) I have a problem comparing him to the guy who fights bigger men on regular basis.
It's interesting you mentioned fedor not fighting top competition lately. But this is due to top competition refusing to fight him. They are on video camera doing this! (Barnett -Real Deal press conference, Couture -3-part press conference upon leaving the UFC, Werdum -PRIDE front page etc) So Fedor's intimidation should count FOR him, not AGAINST him.
just my 2 cents,
peace,
from about 1 month ago
Silva may have walked around at 220 prior to his light heavyweight fight, but he has stated on multiple occasions that when he's fighting middleweight, he walks around at 210lbs. When he's at the end of his training camp for a 185 fight, he tries to be around 200 and then cuts the last 15 to 185. That's almost the exact same cut that other middleweight fighters have, so he's not much bigger than everyone else in the division, if at all.
Just because a fighter CAN reach 220 doesn't mean he'll be in fighting shape at that weight. BJ Penn says he can make heavyweight, but there's no way he would be in prime shape. Before the Silva/Irvin fight, Joe Rogan kept pointing out how Irvin was going to much bigger than him when they got in the cage, that Silva would be around 210 pounds after putting the weight back on while Irvin would be 215-220.
I know Barnett didn't want to fight Fedor at one point, but he's said over the past few weeks that he wants to fight him now. And when did Randy Couture say he didn't want to fight Fedor? His whole premise for leaving the UFC centered around their inability to sign Fedor for a fight with Randy, and I covered that story extensively when it happened. I never heard Randy mention he didn't want to fight Fedor, because the talk was all about wanting to fight him.
If I were a heavyweight fighter, I'd want to make sure I was at the absolute best I could possibly be before stepping in the ring or cage with Fedor. If you've got one shot at the best fighter of all time, you'd want to make it count. I'm not sure this is why Barnett or Werdum turned down the chance to fight him, but it seems reasonable to me.
He may have fighters refusing to fight him, but he's also shirking some of that top competition by not signing with the UFC. Affliction has Arlovksi and Barnett, and I don't think either of those guys would give Fedor much trouble. I'd like to see him fight Werdum, Couture, Gonzaga, perhaps Nog again, and maybe Lesnar at some point. There's a very real possibility that he'd maul all of them, at which point he'd have to be considered the best in the world again. Until that time, though, I just can't give him the top ranking.
But hey, like you said, it's just my two cents. You could put 10 people in a room and you'd have a tough time getting 5 of them to agree on who the best fighter in the world is. That's what makes MMA so much fun.
from about 1 month ago
Jeremy,
After Couture was KOed by Chuck and retired he was offered 3 mil to fight Fedor in Bodog. He instead took 300k to re-sign with UFC to fight TIm. Randy explained this in his own press conference. This is a fact. Randy also explained that he felt he can beat Tim... he said nothing about Fedor :) Tells you something, doesn't it? Now after 2 victories randy is ready to take the risk and get paid VS fedor. Times change, but the FACT is that Randy ducked him.
Werdum turned Fedor down. Pride website front page after Werdum last win in pride. he said: "I'm not ready for the likes of Fedor"
Why would you want to see Nog-Fedor 4??? I would fall asleep as soon as I heard that fight is going down.
yes, many middleweights are huge, and all of them are so huge because they are not good enough to fight at their natural weight (without cutting)
The funny thing is that long after Spider loses or retires fedor will still be #1, and was #1 LONG before Spider cracked top 20 :)
anyway, peace,
from about 1 month ago
As I've said before, I think Randy stands very little chance against Fedor. If they fought 10 times, Couture might win 1, but he would have to be on top of his game to even win that single fight.
I want to see Nog and Fedor go at it again just because it's a classic battle that 95% of the UFC's audience hasn't seen. There's plenty of video in the library to play up the history between the two, and I think it would be a big fight. In terms of PPV buys, Fedor would have to be built up, because most UFC fans have no idea who he is.
And part of me wants Fedor in the UFC so that everyone can see what he's all about. Here we have a guy who a lot of people think is the best of all time, and most UFC fans will never get to see him. He deserves to have the biggest audience possible, and that's in the UFC. He could very likely beat everyone in the heavyweight division, and it would make him an absolute monster superstar. I know he's a superstar in Japan and he's adored there, but over here he's not even as well known as Gabriel Gonzaga, and that's a shame. I tell people about Fedor all the time, and they give me a confused look because they have absolutely no idea who he is. I'd love for that to change.
And weight cutting is an issue in all divisions except for heavyweight. In the last St. Pierre fight, he probably went into the ring at 195 pounds. Both Sean Sherk and Tyson Griffin cut from 175-180. Thiago Alves is a giant man who cuts 25 pounds. Chuck Liddell has stated that he cuts from 225 to 205. It's not just the middleweight division.
I'd like to see weigh-ins that take place on the same day of the fight, because it would eliminate weight cutting. Unfortunately, I doubt it will ever happen unless a fighter dies while cutting.
about 1 month ago
Well I've done my homework and you ceratainly have done yours. Excellent article! Love it. ***** and POTD.
from about 1 month ago
Thanks for the read (and the pick) as always dorothy
about 1 month ago
I felt awkward reading the words "great" and "Leben" in the same sentence.
from about 1 month ago
Yeah me too, I lumped him in with everyone else
about 1 month ago
Great read...
about 1 month ago
Good stuff. I think if GSP beats Penn, it would make perfect sense to move him up or catchweight or something to allow these two guys to fight. Imagine GSP having beat Penn then challenge Silva. That would make millions for the UFC. Thats what makes fights for them and I wouldnt be as surprised as the story might let on. I wanted to see Okami fight him personally. Its too bad though that this guy wont stay until he knows its over. Who knows what we will miss if he retires early. Someone on a post for another article pointed out too, he only will want to retire if he keeps winning. If he loses one or two he may want to avenge those losses and keep fighting. Great point, not mine, but a great point none the less.
from about 1 month ago
I think GSP/Silva is a real possibility. This would give GSP the opportunity to win another belt just like they are doing with Penn. I don't think they would even need a catch weight. GSP just wouldn't have to cut as much weight as he normally does.
Also, I don't really want to see Okami and Silva fight even though it is highly likely because of what happened the first time. Silva dominated the entire fight in their first matchup. Okami was on his heels the whole time and you could tell he was overwhelmed and it was only a matter of time.
from about 1 month ago
Thanks Derek. It would be great if the fight happened and it was for a belt. I think that would add to the allure. As for Okami, I only say that because he has done well and deserves it. Not so much for the fact that he can beat Silva. Okami is a bit underrated in my opinion. Take care bro.
from about 1 month ago
Yeah I'm totally with you on okami being underrated. Probably one of the top 10 most underrated guys. He's huge at 185 and can give guys a lot of problems.
about 1 month ago
good stuff..Anderson is miles ahead of the closest competition..
about 1 month ago
Good Stuff Derek...I honestly think Anderson will play it by ear...retirement wasn't the end for the Natural, and it may not be for the spider either...regardless great job. I think Marquardt has the best shot of beating him right now...
from about 1 month ago
Yeah I'm not so sure. I have no doubt that marquardt would be able to take him down like he did in their first matchup. I don't think marquardt can submit him. On the other hand, I haven't ever seen silva take any damage from ground and pound. I just can't see the second time around going any differently...
Silva has been taken down in a lot of his fights - chonan, takase, lutter, marquardt, and henderson, were all able to get silva on his back but only takase was able to control him on the ground and dominate the jiu-jitsu and eventually lock in a submission. (chonan's W was a fluke submission while they were standing)
Honestly, I think guys like filho, palhares, and maia would give him the most trouble. Palhares is way off the pace now. Maia is probably 3 big wins away from getting there still. By that time Silva's career will be almost over. The bottom line is that he needs to fight filho. Even silva has said that filho is the best middleweight in the world...
about 1 month ago
I agree Nick. I think Marquardt has come the farthest since his loss to Silva. His mentality and physicality seem to be right where they need to be for a rematch. I am less interested to see Yushin fight since he couldn't get by Franklin. Hendo needs another fight before getting another crack. I will reserve my thoughts on Bisping until we see him get by Leben.
Regardless of who he fights, Silva will probably want to be a part of the Super Bowl weekend Card. It will have been 3 months since his fight against Cote and he likes to stay busy. Now that I just saw that Yushin Okami is fighting Dean Lister at UFC 92 I think Marquardt is getting set up to fight Silva at UFC 93/94. That has to be his next fight unless they move him up to 205 again and fight Liddell.
from about 1 month ago
One big problem I see for marquardt ... his loss to leites. That was huge. I'd say give him another crack at silva if he had beaten leites but he didn't. Now he's 1 - 1 in his last two. He needs one more win now in my book even though he was extremely impressive against kampmann. He could get the shot anyways though. The timing will set up perfectly for marquardt. He has that goin for him.
What if Leites beats reljic at ufc 90? He'd be 14 - 1 then. He could jump in this discussion as well.
I am assuming that hendo/bisping are tied up with the new TUF show, okami is already set for UFC 92, and if marquardt doesn't quite deserve it then I think paulo filho should get a crack at him (if those two can agree to fight each other and put their friendship aside, which they should).
Like hendo said before fighting his good friend rampage, something like, let's get together and make some money with some friends...
from about 1 month ago
hendo/franklin and rua/coleman both set for UFC 93 now. Looks like it could be marquardt next after all even though I still think it should be filho
about 1 month ago
Good point on Leites if he beats Reljic. Maybe Leites and Marquardt should rematch since alot of people thought Marquardt got robbed in the split decision. Although I think Leites said he didn't want to fight Nate again because he fought dirty. Oh Well! You don't think Filho needs a tune-up fight in the UFC before getting a crack at the title?
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