Bigfoot Silva is returning to mixed martial arts.
Properly Antonio Silva (19-12, 1NC), the heavyweight fighter was long a staple of promotions including Elite XC, Strikeforce and the UFC. He was also a Cage Warriors heavyweight champion. The Brazilian holds notable wins over Andrei Arlovski, Fedor Emelianenko, Travis Browne, and Alistair Overeem, and challenged Cain Velasquez for gold in the UFC.
His pair of fights against Mark Hunt (one turned to a No Contest following a drug test failure) had fans enthralled.
However, a 1-8, 1NC run to finish his MMA career saw Bigfoot being knocked out far too easily, first in the UFC, then in Russia. He subsequently moved on to bare knuckle boxing, appearing BKFC 8 last October, where he lost to another former UFC heavyweight standout, Gabriel Gonzaga.
It appears it’s back to MMA for Silva next. Taura MMA announced Monday that Silva had signed to fight for them, adding a video on their official Facebook page (the news was later announced via press release). He’s expected to take on Brett Martin (9-1, 1NC) on October 30. The event will be held at the Silver Spurs Arena in Kissimmee, Florida.
He’ll have some familiar company on the card: Rousimar Palhares and Guto Inocente are also expected to appear.
If the bout does come to fruition it will have been three years between MMA bouts for Silva. In addition to his 2019 bare knuckle effort, however, he also took a kickboxing fight during his hiatus. That bout, against Rico Verhoeven at Glory 46 in 2017, also resulted in a knockout loss for Bigfoot.
