Anderson already is easily the greatest MW champ of all time and in the top 3 fighters of all time.
:lol: i actually agree with you on the middleweight statement...
he is the best Middleweight Champ in UFC history...
but top 3 of all time?? your such a Anderson Silva fanboy its ridiculous.
lets look at the facts here... theres been 5 UFC MW champions... Silva, Franklin, Tanner, Bustamante & Menne. with the greatest respect to Evan Tanner & Rich Franklin... its hardly an illustrious list.
then you look at what hes done... if retires after this Belfort fight... what has he achieved?? he would be undefeated in all his UFC fights... which is a great achievement. and he would be undoubtedly the best middleweight champion of all time.
but when you start talking about all time great's... your talking about guys who have won titles in 2 different divisions... guys like BJ Penn & Randy Couture. guys who have come back from defeat and climbed back to the top echelon. Anderson Silva is capable of doing that in LHW... but until he ACTUALLY does... you cant compare him with those guys. even guys who stayed mainly in 1 division... guys like Matt Hughes, Chuck Lidell & GSP. they were/are just as dominant as Silva... in fact what impresses me more about them.. theve shown that they can fight back from defeat in the octagon and get even better.
i just look at Silva's resume at the moment... his finest fights so far would be Dan Henderson, Forest Griffin & Chael Sonnen.
great fights... but hardly on the level of Randy Couture V Chuck Lidell or GSP V BJ Penn or Matt Hughes V GSP or Matt Hughes V BJ Penn...
he can DEFINITELY become top 3 of all time... but he needs to hang around and have those superfights with GSP, Shogun, Jake Shields, Rashad Evans, Rampage, Bones Jones etc...
on a side note... if Vitor Belfort wins on the weekend... he would be come the first ever 3 division champion... which would be SOME achievement.