Current UFC World Middleweight Champion (since UFC 64), Anderson "The Spider" Silva is a 33-year-old from Curitiba, Brazil, born April 14, 1975. He's 6' 2" and weighs 185 pounds. His predominant fighting styles are boxing, Muay Thai, and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (in which he's a black belt), though he's considered to be a well-rounded fighter overall and particularly powerful striker.

His fight-training began at an early age when he began studying Tae Kwon Do at 14-years old. Before turning to professional fighting he worked as both an office clerk and at McDonald's. Until 2006 he was a member of Chute Boxe Academy.

Before coming to the UFC, Silva started out fighting for Shooto followed by PRIDE followed by Cage Rage. His first MMA fight was Shooto: To The Top 2, where he beat Tetsuji Kato by unanimous decision. He lost his first MMA fight, in 2000, to Luiz Azeredo in a split-decision, though he followed that up with 9 straight wins.

His first UFC bout was UFC Fight Night 5 where he beat Chris Leben by knockout just 49 seconds into round 1. Silva then went on to win all the rest of his UFC bouts to date, destroying (consecutively) Rich Franklin, Travis Lutter, Nathan Marquardt, Rich Franklin (again), and Dan Henderson.

In addition to his UFC title, he is also Cage Rage middleweight champ. For a change of pace, Silva recently challenged Roy Jones, Jr. to a straight boxing match.

At the time of this writing, Anderson "The Spider" Silva's overall MMA record is 20-4-0. He is currently studying for a college degree in Physical Education.