7. Yoshihiro Akiyama Vs. Wanderlei Silva UFC 116
Wanderlei Silva became a huge star in the days of Pride FC the organisation where you could stomp on your opponents head or kick it like a football and it was fine. Pride was a Japanese promotion and before it was snapped up by the UFC, Wanderlei Silva had a record of 31-7-1 which is very impressive but most importantly this meant he had made a name for himself beating up Japanese people. Yoshihiro Akiyama, affectionately called Sexyama by 90% of MMA fans, was a big star in Dream (or Heros as it was then called) who hailed from Japan. He had a record of 13-1 prior to his scheduled fight with Silva. Surely the only way Sexyama could prove he was a legitimate force in the UFC was to beat the human equivalent of Godzilla himself (in terms of damage inflicted to the Japanese), Wanderlei Silva. The bout was scheduled for UFC 116 as the co-main event of the night. This was a fight that fans wanted to see, with Akiyamas skill matched up against Wanderleis brawling, all-or-nothing style. Unfortunately Wanderlei had to withdraw from the fight after sustaining broken ribs and an injury to his knee. Akiyama went on to face Chris Leben and after losing by submission to The Crippler has lost every fight since that point. Despite the loss of this intriguing main event, the PPV had an incredible buyrate thanks to its main event featuring Brock Lesnar. Though clearly in the short-term, the success of UFC 116 in terms of its buyrate was a good thing for the UFC, the promotions dependence on Brock to sell PPVs was not. Brocks first love was pro-wrestling so when the ex-champions diverticulitis and kidney stones affected his ability to fight, he hurriedly defected to the WWE. This meant the UFC had lost their star PPV seller.