Is Antonio ‘Bigfoot’ Silva Overrated At Number Four?

Antonio ‘Bigfoot’ Silva has had an up-and-down run since joining the UFC back in 2012. He came in on the heels of a savage knockout at the hands of Daniel Cormier in his final Strikeforce outing and was welcomed to his new promotion by a very angry Cain Velasquez. Velasquez dispatched of ‘Bigfoot’ in brutal fashion, leaving the Team Nogueira fighter bloodied and battered in just over three minutes.

Although back-to-back wins over Travis Browne and Alistair Overeem earned Silva a shot at champion Velasquez at UFC 160, it could be argued that the shallow nature of the Heavyweight division was the deciding factor there. Velasquez dispatched of Silva in similar fashion as the first bout, only this time it took just over a minute to leave Silva on the mat with the ref intervening.

That was back in May. Silva now finds himself booked against the heavy-handed Mark Hunt at UFN 33. A 2011 win over Fedor Emelianenko really put ‘Bigfoot’ on the map, and his two-fight win streak for the UFC was certainly impressive; but does Silva really deserve his number four spot in the rankings?

His less-than-stellar 2-3 run in the last two years doesn’t raise many heartbeats, but he did win a title eliminator against Alistair Overeem so it’s not like the shot was just handed to him. That being said, many people were just as baffled as I was when the UFC actually stuck to their word and gave Silva the shot.

It proved to be a bad move as Silva turned out to be a tune up fight for Velasquez’s third bout against Junior Dos Santos. So let’s consider the rankings: Silva is coming off a loss, but is currently ranked ahead of Travis Browne. Yes, Silva beat Browne in 2012, but ‘Hapa’ has scored two consecutive wins over Alistair Overeem and Gabriel Gonzaga in the time since.

The truth is that we will never be able to pin down a fighter’s true place in the rankings until that very system is made legitimate. In my opinion, the current style of voting for the rankings is just not solid enough. Nonetheless, Silva faces an unranked fighter in ‘The Super Samoan’ and could become another part of Hunt’s fairy tale story.

Hunt is pretty good at proving people wrong and had an amazing streak in the UFC between 2011-13; especially when you consider he debuted in the UFC with five straight losses and got finished in one round by Sean McCorkle. I’d be interested to see what the rankings look like if and when Hunt beats ‘Bigfoot’. Do you think the hulking Brazilian truly deserves his lofty ranking?