Sherdog’s Top 10: Inside Fighters

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5. Wanderlei Silva

Silva epitomizes the brutal, violent clinch work in mixed martial arts, the spiritual ancestor of modern infighting who demonstrated once and for all that the clinch was not just a place to win rounds or grind away but to beat the stuffing out of your opponent. The picture of Quinton Jackson sprawled unconscious in the ropes of the Pride ring, knocked out by the constant assault of Silva’s knees, is one of the iconic images in history, not only of the Japanese promotion but the sport as a whole.

In the early 2000s, the muay Thai clinch was largely unknown to most practitioners of MMA. While Silva only employed a small portion of its technical complexity -- the double-collar tie is actually a fairly uncommon position in full-rules muay Thai -- he rapidly showed just how damaging proper work with knee strikes could be. His bouts against Guy Mezger and the aforementioned Jackson early in the decade secured his reputation, but even in the recent past, he has used his clinch skills to put brutal beatings on his opponents.

Against Michael Bisping, for example, Silva consistently landed hard strikes at close range and hit a disgustingly cool takedown from a caught kick. Cung Le presented a much different challenge, and “The Axe Murderer” weathered the early storm of kicks, waited patiently on the outside and moved into close quarters once Le began to tire. Vicious phone-booth punches hurt Le, but it was a barrage of knees that busted up his face and put him down for the count.

Silva’s skill at close range grew under the tutelage of Rafael Cordeiro, the godfather of MMA clinch work during his time as the head coach of the legendary Chute Boxe camp in Curitiba, Brazil. Chute Boxe fighters have been unfairly stereotyped as wild brawlers, and while there were plenty of exchanges in the pocket, the core of their approach was always strong, technical work in the clinch rather than smooth kickboxing at distance. Those fighters -- the Rua brothers and Silva foremost among them -- pioneered the use of fight-ending offense at close range and showed the rest of the world how it was done.

Whether Silva ever fights again or not, there is no denying his influence on the generations of fighters that followed him.

Number 4 » More than any other elite fighter in MMA today, he relies on his inside game to win fights. He is not a bad range striker, showcasing a long right hand and sneaky kicks to cut off his opponents’ angles, but everything about his approach is predicated on corralling his foe against the fence, grabbing the clinch and going to work.