Sherdog’s Top 10: Scariest Finishers

Anderson Silva in his prime was a mesmerizing talent. | Photo: Dave Mandel/Sherdog.com

8. Anderson Silva

Few fighters in the history of the sport have finished such a wide variety of opponents with as much style and fearsome skill as Silva. Head kicks, punches, front kicks, flying knees, knees in the clinch, reverse elbows, triangle chokes, armbars and everything else under the sun have all brought his challengers to unconsciousness or the point of submission over the years.

While “The Spider” was perfectly capable of leading the dance when he wanted to, he always preferred to counter. That tendency to wait -- and to taunt when his opponents refused to engage -- put a tremendous amount of mental pressure on his foes and forced many into making poor decisions or freezing up entirely. When the frustration grew to be overwhelming, Silva’s ability to run his opponents onto his shots created huge collisions, as was the case in his epic drubbing of Forrest Griffin. He capitalized on a shot from too far out against Carlos Newton with a flying knee, knocking him cold and finishing with punches.

Silva complemented that countering ability with some of the most understated but chillingly effective killer instinct the sport has ever seen. When he hurt his opponents, they simply did not escape. He made a habit of following them to the ground and either posturing up or standing over them, delivering not a torrent of ineffective shots but a steady stream of accurate and powerful punches that never let his wounded prey escape.

The combination of mental pressure and killer instinct, more than shocking visuals of broken limbs or face-planting unconsciousness, makes Silva one of the most frightening finishers in MMA.

Number 7 » When he hits people, he does so with absurd force, and they tend to fall down posthaste. He is one of the most gifted power strikers in MMA history, a marvel of athleticism and sneaky-good technique that has consistently put him in position to do terribly violent things to his opponents.