Wanderlei Silva

Wanderlei Silva, nicknamed "The Axe Murderer" was born on July 3, 1976 in Curitiba, Brazil.  This stocky fighter weighs 205 lbs and stands 5'11" tall. He masters the Muay Thai and the Brazilian Jiu Jitsu style of fighting.  Silva is the PRIDE 2003 Middleweight Grand Prix Champion.
Rudimar Fertigo was responsible for training him the nuances of Muay Thai and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.

Silva is known "The Axe Murderer" for his aggressive fighting style.  A lot of his fights have closed in a knockout or the referee stopping the fight.  He engages his opponents by punches and utilizes his knees in the Muay Thai style.  His closing strikes are kicks and stomps which he uses on opponents to submit or knock them out. 

Silva was involved in fighting 6 matches against different opponents in IV Tudo Championship events.  In a span of three years across four tournaments, he defeated 5 opponents.  His only loss came against Artur Mariano by Total Knock Out.  Silva suffered a cut above his eye in the IVC 2 championships on September 15, 1997. Silva continued fighting despite the cut on his eyelid and used the cut to deliver some telling blows to Mariano.  Mariano later admitted that he never expected Silva to continue fighting with the cut.

Silva made his debut in the Ultimate Fighting Championship on October 16, 1998, at UFC Brazil.  UFC Brazil that year saw a lot of top fighters participating.  His UFC debut match against Vitor Belfort turned out to be Silva's unimaginable defeat in his MMA career.  This fight lasted all but 44 seconds that was terminated with Silva being knocked out by Belfort.  He went on to maintain a healthy record fighting for PRIDE Championships defeating opponents like Ricardo Arouna, Quinton Jackson and many more.

Silva made his debut with PRIDE at the PRIDE 7 event on September 12, 1999.  His first match saw him being face to face with Carl Malenko.  This was a toughly contested battle considering Silva taking his time to get accustomed to the PRIDE rules.  Silva eventually won the contest against Carl by a decision.  The period of 1999-2004 has been memorable for Silva who won 18 straight fights against different opponents, the only exceptions being a draw against a Mirko Cro Cop and Gilbert Yvel.

Silva will always be known as a fighter who specialized in the Muay Thai style of fighting.  He used the Brazilian Jiu Jitsu hand fighting to knock out his opponents as many as 21 times.  Of 40 fights in his career with MMA, Silva has won 31 fights (21 Knockouts and 4 submissions) and lost 7.  Two of these losses have come very recently in late 2006 and early 2007 against Mirko Cro Cop and Dan Henderson.

His style of fighting makes him extremely susceptible to opponents who know to fight the Brazilian Jiu Jitsu style of fighting.  He has an excellent Win Loss record against Japanese fighters not losing a single fight against them. His last two losses not withstanding, Silva is all set for a new beginning this season.  He has learnt the triangle arm choke and that coupled with his Muay Thai and Jiu Jitsu expertise can prove deadly for many of his opponents.