When Anderson Silva was the champion he was truly the greatest fighter in the world. It wasn’t GSP. It wasn’t Jose Aldo. And it was not Fedor. It was the Spider 
But for some reason he was never given the opportunity to fight the LHW division champ even after KO’in forrest griffin in the first round. Never forget Joe rogans words during that fight “I think he really is trying to send a message here” talking about the rest of the fighters at LHW
His legendary title reign was from Oct. 2006 to July 2013. During that time he had 11 title defenses (should have been 12, fuck you travis lutter) and 3 first round KOs in the LHW division. One of those was against former LHW champ Forrest Griffin
Nowadays you get fighters getting champ-champ opportunities all the fucking time. Conman. DC. Volk. Nunes. Etc.
Anderson Silva should have been given that opportunity. During his title reign the LHW division was a turn style of belt holders.
During Silva’s reign at MW, the list of LHW champs goes; Chuck Liddell, Rampage Jackson, Forrest griffin, Rashad Evans, Lyoto Machida, Shogun Rua. Jon Jones
Chuck was only champ till late December of ‘06 so then fighting for the 205 belt would not have made sense at the time
But after that Silva should have been able to fight any one of those LHW champs.
Silva would clown Rampage Jackson. Rampage didn’t have the fight IQ or technical ability to deal with a fighter or Silva’s ability.
We all saw how Silva v. Griffin went… ‘nuff said
Silva v. Rashad evans woulda been a super interesting fight. Rashad was quick as fuck and had a good mixture of wresting with striking but let’s be real… he’s not beating Anderson. He gets caught on the feet eventually or submitted on the ground. Silva was just too good
Silva v. Machida… who the fuck even knows how that fight goes. Probably would have been a snoozefest. They wouldn’t have fought anyway so moot point
Silva v. Shogun now this is the part where I sprout a chubby in my air jordan shorts. This was always a dream fight of mine. The aggressive and bashful shogun Rua v. the perfect counter striker Anderson Silva. At this point in their careers I’d undoubtedly favor Silva to beat the piss out of shogun. His counter striking was just perfection and he would have licked Rua apart who was a very very aggressive striker.
Silva v. Jones… at that point I’d probably favor Silva since he was the goat and the vet and JBJ was just a kid so that fight would not have made sense at the time
Regardless, Anderson Silva should have been the first fighter in UFC history to hold two belts at the same time. Conor never deserved his title shot at LW. He was gifted a fight with Eddie and since then he’s 1-3 in the division. Fuck him
