Anderson Silva: The Spiderman

Anderson Silva is the most recent phenomenon in the world of mixed martial arts. He has yet to have a match in the cage go to the judges, in fact, he has yet to go to the end of the second round.

Most UFC fans know Anderson as the guy who is dominating the middleweight division, but don't know much else about his history, so I thought this would be a good chance to profile the Spider, look at his accompishments and some of the struggles over the years.

As an up and comer, Silva was regarded as a very good Muay Thai striker with underrated power. His long arms and legs allowed him to keep his opponents at range and his very good clinch games allowed him to dominate anyone who got inside of his range, this is still his perferred method of attack, and his skills have improved even more since then.

Anderson made his debut in Brazil on the Meca Vale Tudo card, a very well established event. Though he lost the fight to a much smaller fighter in Luis Azredo by Decision, he would go on to fight in Meca many more times during his early career, going back and forth between the Brazilian show and the Japanese based Shooto organization. Anderson would win every fight following in both of these organizations, including putting on solid showings against good opposition in Hayato Sakurai and future UFC fighter Roan Carniero.

With a record of 6-1, 4 finishes, Anderson was signed by the Pride Fighting Championships and fought Alexander Otsuka at Pride 22. Anderson beat Otsuka by unanimous decision, and the fight as impressive enough to earn him another fight, where he took on Carlos Newton, a well known welterweight who moved up to 185 pounds to fight in Pride.

Silva made quick work of Newton, KOing him with some impressive Muay Thai skills 6:27 of the opening round. Beating a well established fighter was enough to really get Anderson some attention, and his next fight was against one of Pride's many Japanese gatekeeper fighters, Daiju Takase.

Pride executives wanted to see if Anderson had a submission game, and putting him against a solid groundfighter like Takase, who was sure to make the fight go there for a little bit was important for letting Anderson rise in the ranks. Anderson's ground game was not up to par, and he was submitted with a triangle.

While Anderson says openly that he has been studying Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu for as long as he has doing Muay Thai, but he only really started honing his Jiu-Jitsu skills for MMA use after losing to Takase, and picked a good training camp when he started training under the Nogueira brothers. Anderson would later get his blackbelt under the brothers Nogueira.

Anderson left Pride for a little while after his loss and fought in smaller shows in Brazil and America. He was dominant in those fights and was soon called back to Pride to fight another submission fighter and gatekeeper to the upper echelon in Ryo Chonan.

Many people thought that Anderson's striking and reach was sure to overwhelm the smaller Chonan, but Chonan proved to be a warrior and went toe-to-toe with Anderson in one of the best standup wars in the history of the Pride division, but most people just know the fight for its ending.

At about 3:05 in the third round Chonan threw his body at one of Anderson's legs for an incredible takedown into a heelhook submission. To this day, it is considered one of the most incredible submissions ever and is worth watching for any MMA fan.

Anderson fought a few more times in Cage Rage, beating two opponents until he fought Yushin Okami at Rumble on the Rock, where Anderson was disqualified for an illegal kick.

After beating Tony Frykland in Cage Rage Anderson was signed by the UFC and brought in as an opponent for Chris Leben. No one really knew if this was supposed to be a stepping stone match for Leben, who had smashed his previous opponents, or if it was a genuine attempt by the UFC to give us an impressive war on free TV. Whichever of those it was, Anderson put on the best show of his career, stopping Leben in 49 seconds with a dozen perfectly placed punches.

Leben was considered a top contender, and the speculation is that the match was put on free TV to get Leben some attention before the UFC offered him a shot at Middleweight champion Rich Franklin. Whatever the intent, Anderson was now the wrecking ball of the 185 pound division, and demanded attention.



The UFC gave Silva a title shot against Rich Franklin partly due to a lack of other competition for the title and partly because Anderson was such an interesting fighter to talk about. No one in the UFC had really seen anything of him except his domination of Leben, which was probably the most played piece in the promos leading up to the event.

Silva met Rich Franklin at UFC 64 and destroyed him. The fight lasted a little longer than his match with Leben, going all the way to the three minute mark, but even in that short time, Anderson put Rich in need of reconstructive facial surgery with a thai clinch and repeated knees to the face.



The Ultimate Fighter 4 was designed to give a definite top contender in the UFC middleweight division (as well as one for the barren welterweight division), and brought in Travis Lutter, a well know submission fighter with the monoquer of "the serial killer." Though Lutter was a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu instructor, seemingly destined to confront Anderson with a predicament he hadn't really dealt with since his fight Takase, the newly crowned champion made Lutter look like a school boy, locking down a technically perfect triangle choke and finishing Lutter with a combination of the submission hold and elbows to the top of the head. Anderson's dominance on the ground was cemented in the promos.



Lutter became the first opponent to take Silva past the first round, but Anderson made sure it wouldn't happen again, decimating Nathan Marquardt with strikes at 4:50 in the first round.

Most recently, Anderson took a rematch against Rich Franklin in Franklin's native Ohio. While the fight lasted twice as long, going all the way to 1:00 in the second, it looked the same, and Anderson dominated Franklin at range and in the clinch, finally finishing him with knees.

No one knows who will be tapped to fight Anderson next, but whoever it is, they are in for trouble, as Anderson has yet to make any sort of technical mistake in the Octagon. He's definitely a tall order for anyone at 185.