UFC: Have We Ever Seen Anderson Silva Go 100%?

Scary thoughts. We all have them, and they differ for everyone.

Heights. Monsters. Bankruptcy. A ban on coffee in the office. Whatever. Different things scare different people to different degrees. Everyone has something.

Here’s a scary thought for you though: Anderson Silva has never gone 100 percent in his entire UFC career. He’s 15-0, a 10-time defender of the middleweight title, and the only guy out there who can lay claim to being the baddest man on the planet when it comes to unarmed combat.

And he’s done it without really trying.

Don’t think so? Think of the last time you saw him actively looking like he cared about what was happening in the cage. You can’t remember it because it’s never happened.

Think your mind has it romanticized? Go and watch the fights again. They’re all at his pace, on his terms, and they end how he decides they’ll end.

Sure, there’s that one glaring exception, one  that proves the rule—the infamous Silva-Sonnen I—but it still ended with a Silva win and no noticeable ruffles from a guy who just spent 23 minutes catching the beating of his life.

That’s frightening.

Silva fights all look the same: he watches his opponent try to look menacing, he throws a few feints to get his range, then he strikes late in the opening stanza. If the opponent survives that late strike, within a couple of minutes of round two starting, the whole thing is over and the champion has retained with almost baffling ease.

And he’s not beating up Tapout tough guys at the local bar. He’s beating up elite martial artists, guys of all shapes and sizes that have full lifetimes practicing hand-to-hand combat at the highest levels. These men are literally professional badasses, and they’re hailed as heroes if they can withstand Silva’s wrath for six or seven minutes.

What MMA as a sport is fortunate enough to be watching as Silva plies his trade is the first truly great athlete at its disposal. There were good athletes who came before him, and guys like Georges St-Pierre and Jon Jones prove great athletes are coming behind him, but he’s the first.

There were great (perhaps greater) warriors before him, the Royce Gracies and Randy Coutures of the world, but they didn’t have his athleticism.

There were exciting fighters before him, with guys like Tito Ortiz selling fights and Chuck Liddell knocking people out left and right, but they didn’t do it with such domination and for so long.

What Silva does is incredible, shocking, and perhaps above all else, utterly terrifying. Not since Mike Tyson has a combat athlete smashed other trained professionals so convincingly. Not since men started punching each other for prize funds has it been done with such ease.

Anderson Silva is the best ever, and he’s not even trying to be.

Forget whatever other fears you might have. That’s a truly scary thought.