Wanderlei Silva

When Wanderlei Silva was growing up in Curitiba, Brazil, he demonstrated at an early age his fighting prowess. Brazilian fighters like Wanderlei Silva are known for their street fighting roots and challenging workouts he underwent at the famous Chute Box Academy. Wanderlei Silva quickly became known for his devastating Muay-Thai and boxing. Not Many people know that Wanderlei Silva is a black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, which is rarely revealed since most of his fights ended by knockouts.

Wanderlei Silva quickly becomes a star in the sport of Vale Tudo. The rules of Vale Tudo are not very restrictive and allowed Wanderlei Silva to use his relentless kicks and Muay-Thai strikes to end his fights in the early rounds.

Most of Wanderlei Silva's mixed martial arts success was during his time as a fighter in the Pride organization in Japan. Wanderlei Silva was in his prime during his days of fighting in Pride. He was known as the Axe Murder because of his lethal kicks and strikes. Wanderlei Silva held the Pride Middleweight Belt longer than any other fighter before Pride was bought by the UFC.

After Wanderlei Silva's success in Vale Tudo, he was convinced to fight in the UFC. Wanderlei Silva lost his 1st fight in the UFC, there was a lot talk as to the reason why he lost that fight and other early fights in the UFC against such up and comers like Tito Ortiz, was because there were significant differences between the UFC and Vale Tudo.

Wanderlei Silva spent most of his career living and training in Brazil. Wanderlei Silva saw an opportunity to make the move to train and live in the United States. Wanderlei Silva moved to Las Vegas and starting training out of Randy Couture's MMA gym.

When Wanderlei Silva moved from Brazil to Las Vegas to live and train permanently, he found a home at Xtreme Couture, the gym owned by fellow mixed martial artist Randy Couture. Wanderlei Silva enjoyed his time and Xtreme Couture but he yearned for the hardcore type of training that he received back in Brazil so he opened The Wand Fight Team and Training Center.