9. Anderson Silva
“It’s dark, and hell is hot.”
Consistency matters when it comes to entrances, and few have been more reliably intimidating in their walks to the cage than Silva. Even before he became the world’s best 185-pounder in the UFC, his sense of showmanship played out through creative walkouts, like his Michael Jackson dance back in Pride. As much as his actual skills, however, Silva’s seven years of dominance at the top of the UFC’s middleweight division rested on his mystique. DMX’s cover of “No Sunshine” was a huge part of that, a signal of the inevitability of his opponent’s defeat.
As a friend of mine once put it: “You’d go to an Anderson fight and have a bet down on his opponent. The moment the arena went black and that music started, you knew you’d flushed your money right down the toilet.” Between his reputation and his opponents having to wait through his leisurely stroll to the Octagon, they had plenty of time to reflect on the horrors and embarrassments Silva would soon inflict on them. It was no coincidence that so many of his foes seemed to be beaten before he ever stepped into the cage.
Number 8 » The newest generation of fans never knew the two-division UFC champion at anywhere close to his best, but in his prime, the Hawaiian was one of the most dominating fighters in the history of MMA. His in-cage viciousness was legendary, and rightfully so, but one of the less-talked-about parts of his appeal was the genuine emotion that surged through the crowd -- generally partisan in his favor -- just before he fought.