Anderson Silva hailed as the greatest of all time in all combat sports by the UFC boss Dana White

Anderson Silva left the UFC as one of the best to ever do it in MMA, and is now enjoying a second career in boxing.

• Anderson Silva continues to raise eyebrows in his post-UFC career.
• The 46-year-old Brazilian left the UFC as one of the greatest MMA fighters of all time.
• Dana White believes he could be the combat sports GOAT, too.
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Anderson Silva may well be the greatest combat athlete who ever lived.

That's according to the UFC President Dana White, who watched from Octagonside as the showboating Brazilian fighter bamboozled an array of elite middleweight opponents during his run with the Las Vegas-based fight firm.

He made 10 defenses of his UFC middleweight championship, reigned over the 185-pound division for 2,457 days, and ran through a gauntlet of elite fighters like Dan Henderson, Forrest Griffin, and Vitor Belfort.

Though the MMA fighter lost seven of his last nine matches in the UFC, he left the organization as one of the consensus best MMA fighters of all time.

But he refuses to put the gloves down.

Of late, he's swapped four-ounce MMA gloves for larger boxing gloves, and is enjoying a late-career swansong aged 46, defeating the former boxing champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr, and former MMA king Tito Ortiz, using boxing rules.

That run may continue, and it has impressed his old boss.

"Anderson Silva, we honestly need to start talking again about this guy as the GOAT," White told reporters Tuesday after the latest edition of his Contender Series.

"He did to Tito exactly what should be done to Tito. Knocking Tito out in 40 seconds is what should've happened in that fight."

White added: "At 46 fuckin' years old, he left this sport where he was considered one of the greatest of all-time … goes out, beats Chavez Jr. in a boxing match, then goes and knocks Tito out in 40 seconds."

The fight promoter finished: "Anderson Silva might actually be the GOAT of combat sports."

Silva ended his MMA career with a pro record 34 wins (23 knockouts, three submissions, and eight decisions) against 11 losses.

He has a pro boxing record of one win against one loss, and beat Ortiz in a match that counted as an exhibition.

It is unclear where Silva goes next, but he has been linked with other crossover boxing matches with Roy Jones Jr. and Jake Paul.