Anderson Silva Fightography - Meca Vale Tudo

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Anderson Silva started his MMA career at age 25 in Meca Vale Tudo 1.  Over the succeeding events and through his performances in Shooto (interleaved with his MVT4, 5, and 6 fights), he worked his way onto Japan’s biggest stage, Pride
FC.

1. Anderson Silva vs. Luiz Azeredo (Meca Vale Tudo 1)
2. Anderson Silva vs. Jose Barreto (Meca Vale Tudo 2)
3. Anderson Silva vs. Claudionor Fontinelle (Meca Vale Tudo 4)
5. Israel Albuquerque vs. Anderson Silva (Meca Vale Tudo 5)
7. Roan Carneiro vs. Anderson Silva (Meca Vale Tudo 6)

Sorry for the video quality on some of these fights.  They are all new DVD rips from the best sources that I currently have available to me, sadly in some cases they just aren’t very good.  The fights from MVT 2 and 4 are from a commercial disk (previously posted, MVT KOs Vol 1), while the others are from multi-gen boots.  The poor quality of these other fights is why the file sizes are so large.  To get even half decent files, the compression needed to be cranked down because otherwise the noise in the sources lead to intolerable blocking.

 Anderson Silva Fightography - Shooto

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Anderson Silva’s earliest fights were in Meca Vale Tudo, but before he went to Pride, he fought in one of the lower tier Japanese promotions: Shooto.

Shooto, like Pancrase, is one of those Japanese promotions that just keeps on ticking, unlike their bigger, flashier, brethren.  Shooto debuted as a shoot wrestling promotion in the mid 1980s, and, like Pancrase, later evolved into a “hybrid wrestling” MMA promotion.

In any case, it was a good place for Silva’s winning streak (after his loss in his first fight) to continue, and an opportunity for him to take home his first Middleweight title belt.

04. Middleweight Anderson Silva vs Tetsuji Kato (Shooto to the Top 2)
06. Middleweight Anderson Silva challenges Hayato Sakurai (Shooto to the Top 7)

Sorry that the quality isn’t perfect, but I hope you’ll enjoy these two early Anderson Silva fights.

 Anderson Silva Fightography - Pride

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Anderson Silva had already managed to bring himself into the upper tier of Meca Vale Tudo and gained his first middleweight title in Shooto, he was an attractive target for Pride’s Japan vs the World machine.  Their philosophy was simple, bring in foreigners, let them fight each other to prove dominance, and then set them up as heels to Japanese baby face fighters.

Although Pride unquestionably contained many of today’s greatest fighters in it’s heyday, Pride’s results have been questioned in the past, with managers of some fighters who have returned to the US suggesting that some fights were works or that fighters were bribed or threatened to throw fights.  This wasn’t unknown or unprecidented in Japan.  The venerable Pancrase suffered a similar reputation in it’s early days, as a worked shoot outfit.

Whether the results were real or questionable, Anderson Silva’s rise to fame met a snag in Pride.  After completing his contract he turned to Brazil and Europe to rebuild his reputation and continue his rise to dominance.

08. Alex Stiebling vs. Anderson Silva (Pride 21)
09. Alexander Otsuka vs. Anderson Silva (Pride 22)
10. Anderson Silva vs. Carlos Newton (Pride 25)
11. Anderson Silva vs. Daiju Takase (Pride 26)
15. Ryo Chonan vs. Anderson Silva (Pride Shockwave 2004)

These are all new 640×480 (Q40, original AC3 audio) rips from full Pride DVDs posted here previously (I believe all by marvincastro).  If you would like a repost of one of these full DVDs, please PM me or the original poster.  Full event avi files are available as well, please use the search function.

Anderson Silva Fightography - Cage Rage

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Anderson Silva mysteriously did not thrive in Pride as he had in every other promotion that he had fought for to date.  After suffering his first Pride loss in 2003, he went back to his roots in Brazil for a match in Conquista Fight 1, and followed it up with another win in South Korea at Gladiator FC Day 2.

Rolling with that success, he traveled to the UK to fight, like many Pride fighters in the second tier, in Cage Rage.  He was immediately given a title shot, and defended it three times over the next year and a half while racking up a second consecutive loss in Pride at their New Year’s Eve show (Shockwave 2004) and a disqualification at Rumble on the Rock 8.  He’d take his success from the UK and travel onward to the happier hunting grounds of UFC in mid-2006.

14. Middleweight Anderson Silva challenges Lee Murray (Cage Rage
16. Middleweight Jorge Rivera challenges Anderson Silva (Cage Rage 11)
17. Middleweight Curtis Stout challenges Anderson Silva (Cage Rage 14)
19. Middleweight Tony Fryklund challenges Anderson Silva (Cage Rage 16)

Anderson Silva Fightography - Rumble on the Rock

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Anderson Silva only fought once in Rumble on the Rock in their middleweight tournament.  He was expected to win it, but something unexpected happened in his fight with Yushin Okami.

With Yushin Okami almost certainly next in line for a UFC middleweight title shot against Anderson Silva, this is an interesting and relevant fight.

18. Middleweight Anderson Silva vs Yushin Okami (Rumble on the Rock

Anderson Silva Fightography - UFC

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20. Middleweight Anderson Silva vs Chris Leben (UFN 5)
21. Middleweight Anderson Silva challenges Rich Franklin (UFC 64)
22. Catchweight Travis Lutter vs Anderson Silva (UFC 67)
23. Middleweight Nate Marquardt challenges Anderson Silva (UFC 73)
24. Middleweight Rich Franklin challenges Anderson Silva (UFC 77)
25. Middleweight Dan Henderson challenges Anderson Silva (unification) (UFC 82)