November 2, 2024

Wanderlei Silva comes up short at 2018 Brazil elections

Wanderlei Silva wasn’t elected in his home state of Parana in 2018.
Esther Lin, MMA Fighting

“The Axe Murdered” suffered another tough loss.

Eight days after a second-round TKO defeat to longtime rival Quinton “Rampage” Jackson atBellator 206 in San Jose, Wanderlei Silva failed in his attempt to join politics at the 2018 elections in Brazil.

The Bellator star ran for a seat at the Brazilian congress representing his home state of Parana, but received only 13,753 votes at the elections Sunday. With only 0.24% of total votes for federal deputy, placing 64 among 433 candidates, Silva needed more than 70,000 votes to earn a seat at the congress.

The former PRIDE champion wasn’t the only MMA veteran to try to become a politician this year, though.

Former UFC welterweight Paulo Thiago received only 3,100 votes for distrital deputy (0,21%). That’s less than a half of the votes needed to be elected at the Federal District at this year’s elections.

Tiago Trator, a former Jungle Fight lightweight champion and UFC veteran, received 3,539 votes for federal deputy (0,97%), representing the state of Amapa. Trator needed more than 12,000 votes to be elected.

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