After you saw the title of this article, you were most likely attracted to the comment section only to say something along the lines of ‘Rebney is probably right.’ The last time Hector Lombard tasted defeat was five years ago by the hands of Gegard Mousasi back in Pride Bushido 13. Before that, Gono grinded out a unanimous decision just a few months earlier in 2006. Since then, he’s gone on one of the longest current winning streaks in MMA and finished nineteen of his last twenty-four fights. On paper, Hector Lombard represents Anderson Silva’s last true test at middleweight, well just don’t let Chael Sonnen read that. In an interview with Sherdog, Rebney states that only Anderson Silva truly poses a threat for Lombard.
“We have an incredibly dominant champion,” Rebney stated when asked about finding opponents for Lombard. “It’s not easy. I think, right now, when you look at Vitor Vianna and Alexander Shlemenko, we could provide a good test for Hector Lombard. I think he’s one of the best two middleweights on earth. I think Hector is an absolute monster.
“I think there’s one guy on earth right now that I would look at and say to myself, ‘He could beat Hector.’ His name is Anderson Silva. I don’t know that I would pick Anderson to beat Hector, but it would be one heck of a fight. We’ll see what happens with Alexander and Vitor, and one of those guys is going to come out with a big win.”
One can make the argument that Anderson should rematch Chael to legitimize his crown as the GOAT, but once that’s over, there still exists a very game Hector Lombard. He’s like one side of a very unbalanced equation that only the Architect from The Matrix could solve. [Source]