Sherdog’s Top 10: Greatest Title Reigns

1. Anderson Silva

UFC Middleweight Champion, 2006-2013

Sherdog's greatest middleweight and striker ever tops his third list. This should come as no surprise since Silva's legendary UFC middleweight reign is frequently cited among the sport's best and indeed, he received the majority of first-place votes here. In his prime, not only may he have attained the greatest level of striking MMA has seen to this day, but he had very good takedown defense and excellent BJJ, defeating many tough grapplers.

From the time Silva knocked out Rich Franklin with a knee in just under three minutes to conquer the UFC middleweight throne in 2006 until he was knocked out by Chris Weidman in the second round in 2013, he won a dazzling 15 fights in a row, 11 of which were contested for the middleweight title. (His destruction of Travis Lutter was a non-title, catchweight affair after Lutter missed weight, and his knockouts of Forrest Griffin, James Irvin, and Stephan Bonnar occurred at light heavyweight.) That's an incredible 10 title defenses, and even more amazingly, only two of them went to decision. It's hard to imagine that we will ever again see a champion in a major promotion record 13 stoppages in 15 straight wins, especially outside of heavyweight. Furthermore, both of those decisions were one-sided, demonstrating a level of dominance over those seven years that even other inductees on this list can't boast of. Silva's highlights during this time including 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 former Pride two-division champ Dan Henderson, finishing Nate Marquardt in Round 1, and the aforementioned easy decision wins over top grapplers Demian Maia and Thales Leites. Nor is finally losing at the advanced age of 38 to a terrific, undefeated contender like Weidman a remotely shameful defeat, shocking as it was at the time. It was a tremendous standard of success, proving that Silva was head-and-shoulders above the rest of the division for seven years straight.