1. Anderson Silva
Silva, who already finished as Sherdog’s greatest middleweight of all time and fifth among the top 10 greatest pound-for-pound fighters, snags another crown on this list. Interestingly, Silva finished one spot behind Aldo on that pound-for-pound list but finishes ahead of him on the country-specific one, despite the pool of voters being the same. Silva had a legendary run of dominance as the UFC middleweight champion, with 14 straight victories after obliterating Rich Franklin at UFC 64 in 2006, all the way until fighting Chris Weidman in 2013 almost 100 numbered events later. Silva is considered a candidate for the greatest fighter of all time, but what gets rarely discussed is that even at the age of 29, he was the most unlikely GOAT candidate imaginable. At 28, he was submitted via triangle choke by Daiju Takase, a very limited Japanese fighter who had almost twice as many losses as wins. That was actually a bigger upset than Georges St. Pierre losing to Matt Serra, as Silva had been an astounding -1500 favorite. At the age of 29, Silva was stunned again by Ryo Chonan with a flying scissor heel hook. Unlike Takase, Chonan was a pretty good fighter, but aside from an exotic submission game, there was nothing special about him. Silva was a -300 favorite for that one, and even before the incredible submission, had arguably been losing the fight. Both those losses seemed to reinforce the idea that as tremendously talented a striker as Silva was, he was just too easy to take down or submit.
Luckily for Silva and MMA fans around the world, he perfected his style for MMA and became much harder to defeat with grappling. Silva holds wins over numerous other champions and top contenders, decimating Franklin with strikes twice, knocking out Vitor Belfort with a front kick that is a candidate for greatest stoppage ever, finishing Yushin Okami, two stoppages of Chael Sonnen, one a buzzer-beating submission in a fight he was badly losing, choking out Dan Henderson, finishing Nate Marquardt, easy decision wins over top grapplers Demian Maia and Thales Leites, and even a Round 1 knockout of former UFC light heavyweight champion Forrest Griffin. To this day, even with all the evolution and improvement in MMA, one can argue that Anderson Silva in his prime was the greatest striker the sport has ever seen. Eventually Silva lost to an excellent fighter in his own right in Weidman, but keep in mind that he was already 38 for their first fight and had a lot of miles on his body. None of that takes away from how amazing he was at his best, or for how long.