The epitome of a martial artist, he enter the arena. High cheekbones underline challenging eyes, daring any man who would test his mettle. Gifted physically and mentally, he approaches the ring, every step deliberate yet smooth. The agility and the confidence, every muscle efficient and trained. Graceful as a dancer, Anderson Silva enters the cage, his Octagon, the web of the Spider.

And here is where the artist goes to work. Each jab and kick the stroke of a brush, trained at the Chute Boxe Academy. Swift and smooth as bullets they fly, perfected over countless hours of training, his strikes find their marks with unparalleled consistency. Long limbs and flawless technique make him impossible to out strike. Ask iron-jawed, hammer-fisted Dan Henderson.

But to call Silva a striker would be to designate Leonardo da Vinci a mere painter, for inside with the Spider, it only gets worse. His guard is an impossible web, entangled by a black belt in Brazilian Jujitsu bestowed upon him by the Minotauro himself. With a long torso for his height, even at 6'2'', side control is a mile away for opposing middleweights, ground and pound a frivolous dream. No battle can be won when the goal is a stalemate, yet on the mat with Silva, there is little hope of victory. Rich Franklin learned this. Twice.

Franklin was lucky, however, for he got to lose on the ground. It is on the feet, in close, where even God abandons those who stand against Silva. The clinch of the Spider is the omega, an event horizon from which nothing escapes. It is where razor blade elbows and sledgehammer knees fall without mercy, cutting, battering, and breaking both the body and the will.

A Renaissance man, this artist works with every medium of mixed martial arts, and each masterpiece is unique unto itself. Regardless of how it begins, the end is always the same: hands held high, a shining belt around his waste, and the blood of his adversary staining the mat. Oil on canvas. In the web of the Spider.