On this day in 2006, a UFC legend stepped inside the Octagon for the very first time and announced his arrival.
Anderson Silva may not have always been in Dana White’s good books but ‘The Spider’ still produced one of the most incredible careers that the sport has ever seen.
His run as the UFC middleweight champion puts Silva on anyone’s MMA Mount Rushmore as one of the greatest to ever do it.
While Silva’s pro debut took place all the way back in 1997, it’s his first outing inside the Octagon that took his stock to new levels.
Joe Rogan, who had already seen what the Brazilian was capable of in his fights outside of the Octagon, famously predicted that no one was prepared for what was about to happen.
Anderson Silva decimated Chris Leben on his UFC debut to earn a shot at the middleweight title
On June 28 in 2006, Anderson Silva made his Octagon debut at UFC Fight Night 5 at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.
While ‘The Spider’ had suffered four losses before arriving in the UFC, his remarkable performances in English promotion Cage Rage had already attracted Joe Rogan’s attention.
When Silva was matched with the surging Chris Leben in a middleweight title eliminator, many expected the American to prevail because they weren’t overly familiar with his opponent, but this wasn’t the case.
Leben could barely land a glove on Silva, who landed combinations with ease, dropping his opponent before finishing him with a knee inside one minute.
Silva would go on to win the middleweight belt later that year before putting together the UFC’s longest-ever winning streak by getting his hand raised 16 times in a row.
“That’s what I was talking about,” Rogan said on commentary once the fight was stopped. “This is a different kind of striker. Man, that was impressive. I mean, Chris Leben takes a hell of a punch. Anderson Silva just moved on him, gave him angles, caught him coming in, took him apart.”
Joe Rogan advised others to ‘bet the house’ on Anderson Silva to exploit the incorrect odds
During a Fight Companion podcast for UFC 308, Joe Rogan spoke about how he can’t bet on UFC fights anymore, but he used to in the early days of the promotion.
The long-time commentator said that with him having more knowledge on fighters than the oddsmakers, it was sometimes easy to exploit the betting lines when new competitors entered the promotion.
When speaking about the bets that he advised others to take based on his expectations of how the fight would go, Rogan pointed to Silva’s UFC debut as the best example of a prediction that he was certain on.
“There was a few that I was like, ‘100%. This one. All the money on Anderson Silva’. Anderson in his debut, I mean that was the one. I was like, ‘Bet the house!’. I was like bet the house on the Brazilian, bet the house. This is after Anderson became Anderson in Cage Warriors.”