UFC 82 recap: Silva leaves no doubt

March 2, 2008

Credit: Jeff Cain, MMAweekly.com

Anderson Silva had been labeled by some as the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world prior to his fight with Dan Henderson in the main event of UFC 82: Pride of a Champion on Saturday night.

After watching Henderson go five rounds with UFC light heavyweight champion Quinton “Rampage” Jackson in September, I was convinced Henderson would be the guy to knock Silva off of his perch atop the middleweight division. If Henderson was so tough at 205 pounds, imagine how strong he’d be at 185…

Obviously, I was clueless.

Silva left no doubts in my mind that he is truly the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world after submitting Henderson in the second round via rear naked choke to win his sixth straight fight in the UFC. None of those fights have lasted past the second round and Silva has ended each one without a scratch on his face.

One of the most fun topics in MMA is labeling who is truly the best p4p fighter out there. Fedor Emelianenko clearly had that title going into 2007, but he has only fought four times in the last 26 months. A lot of people say interim UFC welterweight champion Georges St.-Pierre is No. 1, but you’ll have a hard time convincing me that a guy who less than a year ago lost by TKO to a fighter who is 6-4 in the UFC can be considered the best. (The term lucky punch doesn’t make sense to me.)

BJ Penn was at the top of the list following his win over Matt Hughes in the first fight between the two, but still has some work to do to make up for back-to-back losses to Hughes and GSP. He could really help his case with a dominating performance against Sean Sherk at UFC 84 in May. That fight was made official on Friday.

Rampage has looked unstoppable in the UFC, but you can’t ignore his two losses to Wanderlei Silva in PRIDE as well as his utter destruction at the hands of Mauricio “Shogun” Rua, who had a ho-hum UFC debut in a loss to Forrest Griffin. Griffin and Rampage just finished filming the latest Ultimate Fighter reality show series which debuts April 2nd on Spike.

Silva has to be the man right now. He has cleaned out the UFC middleweight division. The only guy left in the UFC right now that you can make a case deserves a shot is Yushin Okami, who is the last guy to beat Silva, although it was by DQ. That fight actually happened right here in Hawaii as part of the Rumble on the Rock welterweight tournament when Silva put Okami into la-la land with an illegal upkick on a grounded fighter. If Okami is Silva’s next fight, I can’t see that one last past the second round either.

What do you guys think? Can anybody stop the Spider? Is Fedor still #1? Who else out there should be considered as the best p4p fighter in the world?

Also have to give props to Chris Leben, who is a teacher at the Icon Sport Fitness Center in Niu Valley and calls Hawaii home. Leben earned a nice bonus for the KO of the night in his fight with Alessio Sakara. Leben isn’t the biggest, fastest, or strongest fighter out there, but he is a warrior and will thrown down with anybody. Every one of his fights is action-packed from the opening bell until somebody hits the canvas, and his knockout of Sakara was very impressive. You have to respect the heck out of him for how he fights. It’ll be interesting to see what the UFC lines up next for the Crippler.

Every Monday I’ll attempt to recap the best fights over the weekend. Coming up, I’ll have a preview of next weekend’s Icon Sport card as Kala Kolohe Hose fights Phil Baroni in the main event. EliteXC is returning to Showtime this weekend as Ken Shamrock makes his debut in Cage Rage, and two big shows in Japan are taking place in the next two weeks. Plenty of MMA to fill your appetite.

Posted in Fights