The 5 best UFC fighters from Brazil

#1 Anderson Silva

At his peak, Anderson Silva was considered the best fighter on the planet

Despite the current controversy surrounding his potential use of performance-enhancing drugs, Anderson Silva still stands head and shoulders above all of the other Brazilian greats inside the UFC. Until this October he held the record number of UFC title defences with ten, and he would still jointly hold the record had Travis Lutter made weight for their Middleweight title fight.

He won his first sixteen UFC fights – a figure that will likely never be topped – and only went to decision twice. And on three occasions he made excursions up to 205lbs from his usual 185lbs and was unbeaten there, even stopping former Light-Heavyweight champ Forrest Griffin in one of his greatest ever performances.

But it wasn’t his amazing accomplishments that made Silva so great – it was the way in which he fought. At his peak, Silva fought like a character from The Matrix, moving and striking in a way that other fighters could only dream about. His knockouts of Griffin, Vitor Belfort and Yushin Okami remain jaw-dropping to this day. He wasn’t just better than his opponents – he was moving in another dimension.

And he was well-rounded, too, submitting noted ground fighters Travis Lutter, Dan Henderson and Chael Sonnen to defend his title when they took him down to avoid his deadly striking. Admittedly, he had a tendency to play with his food at times – his fights with Thales Leites and Demian Maia, in particular, were dire – and that meant that the fans didn’t always love him. But one flashy performance later and everyone was back on side.

Silva’s seven-year run of dominance ended in 2013 when he was knocked out by challenger Chris Weidman, and in the rematch, he suffered a horrific leg break. Most observers agree that it was his desire to return from such a terrible injury that turned his head to PEDs. He’s tested positive twice since the injury, and it’s no surprise that at 42, he now appears to be a shadow of his former self.

Of course, everyone gets old – even legends like Silva. And when we look back in years to come, will anyone really hold the drug test failures late in his career – and the losses to the likes of Michael Bisping and Daniel Cormier – against him? It’s doubtful.

It’s more likely that they’ll think back to his victories over Henderson, Belfort, Sonnen, Griffin and Franklin, and still recognise him as the greatest UFC fighter to ever hail from Brazil. Nobody comes close really.

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