The Ultimate Fighting Championships are filled with a lot of big, tough men, with Tim Sylvia being a prime example of their ranks. Though he's made several missteps in his mixed martial arts career and suffered from personal setbacks and injury, he's still making an effort to bounce back and be a serious competitor stepping into the Octagon. Sylvia has had to deal with severe physical injury, notably in the form of back problems, along with his past mistakes. By now, however, he is hoping to make up for lost time as he poises himself to return in UFC 77, where he is set to face Brandon Vera, a younger fighter who has yet to be beaten.



Sylvia has a professional MMA record of 23 wins and three losses, which he earned even while dealing with a severe back ailment. He had three bulging discs in his back which often caused him pain, yet he kept putting corrective surgery off and telling himself that it could wait. He emerged the victor in a match against Victor Rodriguez back in 2003, and continued to defend his title belt in another bout. However, in the wake of another triumph versus Gan McGee, Sylvia was found to test positive for illegal and forbidden substance abuse. This led to the fighter having his title taken away from him.

In a further downturn, he broke his arm in a match against Frank Mir, and had also had a harder time in facing contenders such as Andrei Arlovski, Jeff Monson, and Randy Couture. After his loss to Couture at UFC 68, he decided that the pain his back was giving him was too much and he had to finally undergo surgery. Sylvia even admitted to crying himself to sleep at night because of the pain, and says he realized he was fighting for the wrong reason, which was mainly money. Even though he lost to Couture, he says the fight was a learning experience for him, and he still holds his fellow MMA fighter in high regard.