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Murilo Bustamante

The history of the middleweight division is so dominated by a few giant, monolithic figures--Anderson, Wanderlei, Henderson, Sakuraba--that even its great fighters, its Rich Franklins and Kazuo Misakis, get lost in the shuffle. Murilo Bustamante is barely remembered by modern MMA fans, and that is a crime, because he's one of the greatest the middleweight division ever saw.

Bustamante was one of the pioneers of modern MMA--he was training BJJ in the mid-seventies, boxing in the early eighties and had his first MMA fight in 1991. As a representative of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Bustamante was a central figure in the BJJ vs Luta Livre feud that inadvertently created modern mixed martial arts. The two schools had fought numerous times in the streets, and a not-entirely-legal fight card was born out of it: The Jiu-Jitsu vs Luta Livre Challenge, where masters of each would face off to defend their art. Only three of the fights wound up taking place, and the BJJ fighters won all of them--though not iwthout controversy, as two of the stoppages had Luta Livre's adherents crying favoritism. Murilo Bustamante's victory was the only one that couldn't be denied: He so thoroughly beat on Marcelo Mendes that Mendes left the ring and refused to return. It was the start of a fantastic career--one Bustamante wouldn't return to for half a decade.

Bustamante didn't truly start fighting until he had already turned 30, which made his success all the more notable--combat being, traditionally, a young man's sport. He swept his way to the UFC--aside from a hard-fought decision loss to Chuck Liddell--won its middleweight championship and became the first man to defend it, defeating Matt Lindland in a match he infamously had to win twice when Lindland denied tapping out to an armbar in the first round. Incensed at the disrespect, and the general chaos within the UFC as it transitioned to new management, Bustamante vacated his belt, went overseas, and signed with Pride.

His debut came sooner than expected. Initially meant to fight later in the year, Bustamante's teammate Ricardo Arona fell injured before his Middleweight GP match with Quinton Jackson--so Bustamante stepped up, on five days' notice, to face one of the top light-heavyweights in the world. As a testament to hsi toughness, Bustamante took him to a split decision. It was the first of a three-loss streak for Murilo, and the deciding factor in his dropping down to the newly-opened Pride Welterweight division--which was equivalent ot the UFC's middleweight division, so it was more like returning to where he'd been successful in the first place--and he ran the table, taking three dominant victories and making it to the finals of the tournament with Dan Henderson.

The resulting fight is still controversial. Most felt Bustamante deserved the decision, and the Welterweight title with it, but Henderson controlled the position grappling--and was the more marketable fighter--and got the nod. (There's a reason Pride fans called him Decision Dan.) It was the end of Bustamante's time as a top fighter--which is not particularly surprising, as he turned 40 the following year. He'd fight a few more times before going into semi-retirement, and two fights after that, permanent retirement.

Bustamante had a pretty great career, all in all: UFC champion, fights in Pancrase, the UFC and Pride, and realistically, he should've been the middleweight champion of Japan--at 39. He retired to run Brazilian Top Team, and he's still a successful trainer to this day--maybe TOO successful, since he gave us Rousimar Palhares, for which he has since apologized.

Moveset, stats, logic and four attires (Pride: Shockwave 2005 vs Henderson / UFC 35 vs Menne / Jiu-Jitsu vs Luta Livre vs Mendes / AFC 2 vs Menne).