Sherdog’s Top 10: Inside Fighters

2. Anderson Silva

Silva is perhaps the greatest fighter of all-time, and if not, he is certainly one of the top three. Although he accomplished unimaginable things as a range striker, namely his brief entry into the matrix against Forrest Griffin, his reverse elbow knockout of Tony Fryklund and his front kick against Vitor Belfort, the clinch was always his greatest point of strength.

Like Wanderlei Silva, “The Spider” spent his formative years under the watchful eye of former Chute Boxe coach and current Kings MMA proprietor Rafael Cordeiro, who laid the foundation of the inside game that demolished Rich Franklin, went toe-to-toe with Dan Henderson and speared a counter knee through Stephan Bonnar’s solar plexus, among many, many other accomplishments.

While he lacks the wrestling acumen of a Randy Couture or the high-level judo base of a Ronda Rousey, Silva makes up for that deficit with an otherworldly knowledge of the nuances of the muay Thai clinch. Simply put, he has forgotten more about the complexities of kneeing and elbowing and controlling people than most great clinch fighters ever learn. Silva is a master of using the vice-like pressure from his elbows to completely control his opponents’ heads and therefore their entire bodies from the double-collar tie, and nobody, not even more physically imposing fighters like Wanderlei Silva, has done it with more skill or against higher-quality opposition. “The Spider” is also a master of creating space with a shoulder strike or a small movement of his elbow through which he can slice a knee. He switches seamlessly between knees, elbows and surprisingly powerful punches at close range, and he can hit the occasional trip, as in the fight against Bonnar, and immediately follow with a devastating strike.

Silva did an entire instructional DVD on his approach to the clinch, and if you can find it, it is well worth the time for the dedicated fight fan as a window to the true technical depth and complexity of his inside game. If not for a certain young upstart, Silva would be the easy pick for the greatest clinch fighter in history, but time waits for no man.

Number 1 » No fighter in the history of MMA has shown the sheer diversity that he displays in his inside game. From the very beginning of his career in the UFC, the clinch has been his wheelhouse, the place where a relatively inexperienced fighter could retreat in times of trouble and get his bearings against increasingly skilled opposition.