No division in the UFC produces more brutal knockouts than at heavyweight. Four entrants in these rankings have earned the right to call themselves the UFC Heavyweight Champion. Two heavyweight record holders feature in the top three.
The UFC is renowned for being the biggest stage on the planet for the sport of mixed martial arts, few sights inside the Octagon are as dramatic as a devastating KO delivered by a heavyweight wearing 4oz gloves. Whether it's a dominant win in the opening moments of a fight or a punch from nowhere that completely changes the course of a fight, watching a true knockout artist at work is a thing of beauty. The Las Vegas-based promotion has had its fair share of heavyweights with power-packed fists over the years.
Some have gone on to become UFC champions, while others have simply earned the respect of fans and peers alike with the fight-ending force they possess. In celebration of these hard-hitting warriors, GIVEMESPORT have ranked the 10 biggest punchers in UFC history. When compiling these rankings, factors such as overall MMA records and the quality of opposition faced were taken into account.
However, the most important quality for a fighter on this list is the ability to close the show with a single shot. 10 Roy Nelson With a belly that hung way over his fight shorts, ‘Big Country’ may not have looked like a destroyer. However, he could bang with the best of them in his era.
Nelson earned himself a UFC contract by winning season 10 of The Ultimate Fighter. He rubber-stamped his win on the show by separating Brendan Schaub from his senses inside a round. It remains one of the most violent finishes in the history of the show.
Of his nine career victories in the promotion, eight came inside the distance. Among those wins were triumphs over Mirko Cro Cop and Cheick Kongo. 9 Brock Lesnar Although not the owner of one-punch knockout power, Lesnar had some seriously intense force in his fists.
Following an abrupt departure from WWE in 2024, Brock briefly made an attempt at carving out an NFL career, before deciding to put his amateur wrestling skills to use in MMA. After just one fight, he was signed by the UFC and won the company’s heavyweight title in just his fourth career bout. He won the gold by defeating Randy Couture via TKO due to punches and went on to destroy Frank Mir in similar fashion in his first defence at UFC 100.
8 Sergei Pavlovich After opening his UFC career with a loss to Alistair Overeem, Pavlovich regrouped in stunning fashion. The Russian slugger finished his next six opponents inside the Octagon - all of them within a round. His magnificent run of form was enough to see him granted a shot at the interim heavyweight championship at UFC 295, where he took on Britain’s Tom Aspinall.
Unfortunately for Sergei, his run of dominance was ended in just 69 seconds as Aspinall picked up the biggest win of his professional life. That setback was understandably a huge blow to Pavlovich - and it showed as he laboured to a decision defeat in his UFC return against Alexander Volkov. 7 Shane Carwin For the first 12 fights as a professional, things couldn’t have gone much better for Carwin.
After eight first-round victories on the regional circuit, the American continued his run of dominance when he arrived in the UFC. It took him just 44 seconds to win on his Octagon debut via one-punch knockout at UFC 84 and he quickly followed that success up with a further three victories inside five minutes. Carwin’s meteoric rise was enough to earn him a shot at Brock Lesnar’s UFC Heavyweight Championship in July 2010.
Despite a strong start, he ultimately fell to a submission defeat. Following a final UFC fight - which he also lost - Carwin called time on his MMA career. 6 Stipe Miocic Widely considered to be the greatest heavyweight in UFC history, Miocic began his first heavyweight title reign by knocking Fabricio Werdum out on Brazilian soil at UFC 198.
His reaction to scoring the upset is one that will live on for years to come. After winning the belt, Miocic recorded stoppage victories over Alistair Overeem, Junior dos Santos and Daniel Cormier. The American veteran will look to add one more big name to his list of KOs when he faces Jon Jones at UFC 309 in November.
Dana White has already indicated that he expects the bout to be Miocic’s last, regardless of the result. 5 Mark Hunt He might have more UFC losses on his record than wins, but the ‘Super Samoan’ hit like a truck. When he connected flush, it was generally the end of the fight.
Seven of his eight UFC victories came by knockout - including his walk-off finish of Roy Nelson in 2014 - which picked up ‘KO of the Year’ honours. Across his run with the Las Vegas-based promotion, he fought no less than five former heavyweight champions and never shied away from a challenge. Hunt’s career ended with three consecutive losses.
However, his final win inside the Octagon saw him stop fellow heavy-handed slugger Derrick Lewis. 4 Junior dos Santos After going unbeaten in his first seven bouts in the UFC, ‘Cigano’ was rewarded with a shot at heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez - and wasted little time in securing the gold. It took Dos Santos barely a minute to get the job done as he announced himself as the new ruler of the division in devastating fashion.
His first title defence didn’t make it out of the second record, as he marched through Frank Mir. Overall, the Brazilian secured knockouts in nine of his UFC contests, winning multiple bonus awards for his staggering displays of power. For the first four years of his time with the promotion, Dos Santos was one of the most feared strikers in all of MMA.
3 Tom Aspinall The reigning UFC Interim Heavyweight Champion has some serious power in his fists - and every man he's faced inside the Octagon has felt it. Aspinall has been getting rid of his opponents so quickly that his fights have rarely made it out of the first round. With an average fight duration of just two minutes and two seconds, the Salford man currently holds the UFC record for the shortest average bout time in company history.
The Brit has never even seen the third round in his 18-fight MMA career. Every single one of Aspinall's victories have come by stoppage. He's knocked out 12 opponents and submitted the other three.
Those numbers are a key reason why many fans want to see him handed an opportunity to unify the division officially in a fight with Jon Jones. 2 Derrick Lewis On the subject of heavyweights who hold UFC records, no fighter in company history has more knockouts than Lewis. 'The Black Beast' has no less starched than 15 foes inside the distance while competing in the Octagon.
Despite the fact that he's closing in on his 40th birthday, Lewis' desire to keep competing among the giants of the UFC shows no sign of stopping any time soon. 1 Francis Ngannou 'The Predator' actually won three of his first four MMA bouts by submission, before seemingly realising that it was far easier just to just knock his opponents into next week. Once the Cameroonian striker got an appetite for destruction, he quickly cemented his legacy as one of the most fearsome punchers in combat sports history.
His brutal knockouts of Jairzinho Rozenstruik and Alistair Overeem in the UFC were scary in their ferociousness and it was no surprise to see him stop Stipe Miocic in emphatic fashion to claim the UFC Heavyweight title in 2021..
