Jean Silva isn’t the average Contenders Series pickup.
“Lord” improved to 4-0 inside the Octagon last night (Sat., Feb. 22, 2025), planishing accomplished professional kickboxer Melsik Baghdasaryan in less than a round to secure his fourth UFC victory via knockout. Fighters who start their UFC careers with four straight knockouts are already uncommon, but there’s something special about just how Silva is winning fights.
Aside from his softball debut opponent, the Brazilian is clobbering people who don’t usually fall down to punches. How many wars have we seen Charles Jourdain and Drew Dober go through without faltering? How many hard shots have those UFC veterans walked through without blinking? Silva’s power punches are different, taking immediate effect. From the information I can find online about Baghdasaryan, he had only previously been stopped once in his professional boxing, kickboxing, and MMA careers.
Silva made it look easy against each of them.
There’s more to it than just the results or their violent nature. Jean Silva has aura in a very genuine manner. Unlike so many others, he’s not trying to role play as Conor McGregor. He’s just being himself, and it’s hard to look away.
Calling Silva kind of weird would be an understatement. As Bruce Buffer introduced him last night, he looked on the verge of tears. A minute into the fight, he’s laughing and smiling, having the absolute time of his life. A couple minutes later, he’s high-fiving and hugging Baghdasaryan. As the commentary crew are still complaining about his friendly behavior, he drops a right hand bomb right on the chin.
Baghdasaryan goes down and is gone. Silva, so utterly confident in his mastery of violence, looks to the ref and asks if he can start celebrating. The ref isn’t as convinced, so Silva lands a few strikes to seal the deal: 12-6 elbows to the ribs! It was a bizarre sequence, and it’s not the first time Silva has gone from dapping up an opponent to committing acts of violence against them in mere seconds.
More importantly, it was memorable.
Scoring vicious stoppages in a unique style is how stars are born. In four fights and 13 months, “Lord Assassin” has become a must-watch talent and the most interesting unranked fighter at 145-pounds.
I doubt he’ll remain unranked for long. His callout of Bryce Mitchell was brilliant, right at a time when UFC is loathe to give Mitchell anything but bad match ups. Most likely, Jean Silva continues the work of Josh Emmett and Ilia Topuria, eliminating a few more of the functioning braincells the Flat Earth Champion has left. Regardless of whether the “Thug Nasty” match up materializes or not, I can’t wait to see Silva back at work.
I’m confident I’m not alone.
This story originally appeared on MMA Mania
