Sherdog’s Top 10: New Year’s Eve Fights

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2. Mark Hunt vs. Wanderlei Silva
Pride “Shockwave 2004” | Dec. 31, 2004

Hunt, who was just 1-1 in professional mixed martial arts competition at the time, was a short-notice injury replacement for Japanese legend Kazushi Sakuraba. Despite the K-1 standout’s relative inexperience, Silva recognized the challenges in facing an opponent would be some 70 pounds heavier on fight night.

“I asked how many kilos he had, because to give five kilos’ advantage in MMA already is an absurd thing, because they are all top fighters,” Silva would later tell Sherdog.com. “There I found that the dudes went to say that he had the same weight as Fedor -- around 105 kilograms. Then they said he had 125 kilograms. There I said, ‘[Expletive]! I got to think about it and I’ll be back with an answer.’ I was in my room and 20 minutes later I was with my mindset, finding that it was possible; I wanted to fight and decided to accept.”

At the time, “The Axe Murderer” was the Pride Fighting Championships middleweight titleholder, and the fearsome Chute Boxe representative was unbeaten in 20 appearances with the Japanese promotion. Coming off a brutal knockout of Quinton Jackson two months earlier -- his seventh stoppage via strikes in his last eight outings -- it was hard to bet against the man regarded by many as the world’s top fighter at the time. Knocking out the hard-headed and heavy-handed Hunt would be a whole different ballgame, however.

The bout itself featured plenty of entertaining ebb and flow, and while Silva swung with his usual abandon, it was Hunt who floored the Brazilian on three different occasions. Meanwhile, Silva successfully landed takedowns throughout the contest, though the K-1 veteran showed an improving ground game through escapes and submission defense. Perhaps most memorable of all was a move executed by Hunt on a prone Silva in the first round that guest analyst Randy Couture would call an “atomic butt drop,” which looked exactly like it sounds.

In the end, Hunt’s formidable power did enough to sway the judges and earn a controversial split decision victory, ending Silva’s unbeaten run in Pride. The middleweight champion, who told Sherdog.com that he felt he did enough to win rounds one and three, was not the only one who would be baffled by the ruling.

“I’m dumbfounded,” said Couture after the verdict was announced. “I’m surprised by the decision.”

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