The man to beat

Anderson Silva is the longest reigning champion in the Ultimate Fighting Championship. He hasn’t lost in five UFC fights, and his most serious challenger in the middleweight division is Temecula’s Dan Henderson, whom Silva fights tonight at UFC 82 in Columbus, Ohio.

Another victory affirms Silva’s status as UFC’s best pound-for-pound fighter, and could possibly leave him void of any legitimate competition in a beaten-up middleweight division.

“If Anderson walks through Dan Henderson, this guy is our Mike Tyson,” UFC President Dana White said this week.

Or at least Tyson minus the personal baggage.

Silva (20-4 in mixed martial arts) is a Brazilian who speaks little English. He speaks in a high, quiet voice, has four children and says he spends off-time playing video games, watching Jackie Chan and Jet Li movies and playing paint ball.

“He’s the sweetest guy,” White said. “You hear him talk, and ask, ‘This guy fights?’ ”

Does he ever.

At 6 feet 2, Silva usually has a height and reach advantage over his 185-pound opponents, an important detail given his superb striking and kicking ability. The 32-year-old moves quickly, is a skilled jiujitsu fighter, and professes to being as comfortable on the mat as he is in an upright stance.

That claim will be tested by Henderson, the former PRIDE Fighting Championships two-belt champion who is most dangerous on the canvas (He was a CIF wrestling champion from Victorville).

“I’m not afraid to try to clench him [upright] or beat him up on the ground,” Henderson said. “Out in the open, I have to be careful. He’s got a little length on me, and has amazing kicks and long strikes.”

Silva won the UFC title in October 2006, punishing champion Rich Franklin with a series of knee kicks to the body. He landed a devastating knee to Franklin’s face, and the champion slumped to the mat late in the first round.

Silva’s three fights since, including another dismissal of Franklin, haven’t lasted past the second round.

“Every day, I learn something new,” Silva said recently through an interpreter while working out at a Redondo Beach gym with current UFC heavyweight champion Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira. “There’s always someone coming along thinking they’re better than me and each fight is different. That’s why I train with a lot of different guys.”

Silva has been a fighter since signing up for a taekwondo class in Brazil as a 9-year-old. Several friends were involved and committed, and so his training period extended into his adult life. He and Nogueira recently purchased a new MMA gym in Miami.

Silva has fought in Japan’s defunct PRIDE, and the MMA Cage Rage events. He also has boxed professionally.

“He was born to be a fighter,” Nogueira said. “He has a good fighter’s body: strong, long arms, and he’s fast and strong for his size. He can grapple and stand up, whatever it takes. He’s complete.”

Nogueira has fought and defeated Henderson, and said he has passed along tips to Silva.

“Push the fight as much as you can, I tell him,” Nogueira said. “Dan Henderson is good in the first round or two. If the fight keeps going, he starts going downhill. I think [Silva] wins by KO no later than the third.”

Silva said he doesn’t think of himself as the best MMA fighter in the world, as White now labels him. He defuses questions about who in the UFC would pose his toughest test by joking, “Before I retire, I’d like to fight my clone.

“It hasn’t gotten to my head, the whole title thing. I’ve been fighting for so long, it becomes natural. I’ve learned how to deal with the pressure.”

White, meanwhile, enjoys seeing Silva transform from the relaxed father into a fighter who “destroys people.”

The UFC president insists he’s not worried about Silva being on the cusp of “cleaning out the division” against Henderson.

“I’d never think that’s a dilemma,” White said of the top-heavy middleweight division. “It’s not bad for me to see this guy who goes into every fight to finish the guy.”

Silva has said he doesn’t want to entertain the idea of future opponents, even though White hints he could move welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre or a talented light-heavyweight from the UFC’s most stacked division into a Silva showdown.

“Don’t worry about a lack of fights for this guy,” White said.

Sean Sherk, returning from a six-month steroid suspension, will seek to regain his lightweight belt against interim lightweight champion B.J. Penn in UFC 84, scheduled for May 24 at MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. Also on the card, former light-heavyweight champion Tito Ortiz, perhaps fighting his final UFC bout, will meet unbeaten Lyoto Machida, and Wanderlei Silva will fight Keith Jardine.

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lance.pugmire@latimes.com

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UFC 82

* When: Tonight, 7 PST

* Where: Columbus, Ohio

* TV: Pay-per-view