(Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)
5. Heath "The Texas Crazy Horse" Herring
"Herring goes spinning back!"
No matter how bad it gets, Heath Herring will still hang in there. The most obvious examples of Herring's never give up mentality can date all the way back to 2002, when he fought Fedor Emelianenko, entering as considerable favourite.
Herring just got straight up brutalised for eight of the first 10 minutes, getting taken down at will—even being suplexed—and punched and kneed until Fedor punched himself out, and Herring managed to get side control and land some harmless knees into Fedor's armpit.
At that point, the doctors decided to call a halt, stating that Herring had received too much damage and Fedor was awarded the TKO.
In his next fight, Herring faced Mirko Cro Cop and was summarily dispatched, being beaten to the punch every time and being finished by a liver kick with ground and pound in just three minutes and 17 seconds of round one.
More recently, Heath Herring faced newcomer Brock Lesnar, who had a considerable size, weight and reach advantage over the Texan, but even then he had to have expected much better.
Lesnar broke Herring's orbital bone with the first punch he threw, sending Herring tumbling backwards head over heels in the process. Lesnar controlled him for the remainder of the fight, punishing him with punches and vicious knees to the body that had Heath passing blood the next day.
Herring has a total of four TKO's on his record, Ramazan Mezhidov (Cut), Fedor Emelianenko (Doctor Stoppage), Mirko 'Cro Cop' Filipovic (Kick to the body and punches) and Sam Greco (Knee Injury).
4. Mauricio "Shogun" Rua
"He's rocked him! Nogueira rocks Shogun but he gets right back up to his feet!"
With a chin that is sometimes forgotten due to his Jiu Jitsu and Muay Thai, Shogun has only been dropped once, and that was against an awesome right hook from Antonio Rogerio Nogueira in the picture above.
He hasn't really been on the end of too many beatings, so the Rogerio punch is the best thing we have to go on, but that was as hard a shot as any ever in the light heavyweight division, and it connected flush on the side of the jaw, and it knocked him down for a total of half a second.
He has been TKO'd once, when he broke his arm after improperly bracing a takedown against Mark Coleman in PRIDE 31, 2006. He has never been knocked unconscious or anywhere near it.
Shogun will get a chance to exhibit his iron jaw at UFC 104 against undefeated Lyoto Machida for the UFC light heavyweight title.
3. Fedor "The Last Emperor" Emelianenko
"Oooh. Oh! OHH! OOOOH MY GOOOD!!!!"
This one is a difficult choice, simply because Fedor is so rarely hit. Even the Randleplex, while undoubtedly the best suplex ever in MMA, didn't seem to hit him properly, instead only hitting the upper part of his back/shoulders and transferring barely any of the force to his skull.
Thus, the only real thing we have to go on is Kazuyuki Fujita's monster overhand right that blasted the Last Emperor on the left temple, causing his legs to wobble and almost give way.
But give way he did not, instead he clinched with Fujita and stopped him doing any more damage. After a brief period on his back, Fedor finished Fujita two minutes later with a liver kick, a left-right combo on Fujita's jaw and finished him with a windpipe choke.
The only TKO on Fedor's record comes via doctor stoppage from an elbow delivered by Tsuyoshi Kohsaka in 2000, reopening the cut that Ricardo Arona had been responsible for earlier that night. He has never been KO'd or knocked down in his 32 fight career.
2. Aleksander Emelianenko
"Now Khaitonov's picking apart Emelianenko."
Another granite jaw, Aleksander, the lesser known of the Emelianenko brothers, has taken the best shots from the best fighters. He has only been knocked down twice in his entire career.
The first was when Aleksander went toe to toe with Sergei Kharitonov, hard hitting boxing silver medalist in the 2003 Central Asian Games, for the entire fight.
He was having huge trouble early on, losing the striking convincingly, and even getting dropped, but after a round of being teed up on, Aleks came back with a couple of power shots and finished Kharitonov with knees to get the TKO at 6:45 of the first round.
The second was Aleksander's first and only KO, from a Cro Cop left high kick to the jaw followed up by hammerfists, but even then he still clung to consciousness. His large frame, great chin and fast and powerful boxing makes Aleksander one of the most talented people in the heavyweight division. That is the only (T)KO on his record to date.
However, with no big fights lined up and not currently ranked in the top-10 by anyone, I'll agree with his big brother who believes he wasted his natural talent.
1. Quinton "Rampage" Jackson
"How is Quinton Jackson still standing?"
No list could be complete without Rampage Jackson. Jackson has two TKO's and one KO on his record.
The TKO's came from Mauricio Rua, who broke his ribs and used the Muay Thai clinch to deliver a series of debilitating knees to Jackson's head, before finally soccer kicking him in the head to get the TKO, and from Wanderlei Silva, who used the Muay Thai clinch to deliver about 13 unanswered knees to Jackson's skull, before he finally collapsed in a heap, leaving the referee to call the stoppage.
He had a close call against Ricardo Arona, looking like he was out for a second after eating a few upkicks, but his only true KO was a horrific one.
Wanderlei Silva started it off with a gigantic right hook, the shock of which could be seen running down Silva's bicep, and once again, Silva used the clinch to deliver a series of knees, and did not stop until Jackson went completely limp, falling through the ropes with blood dropping from his mouth.
It was one of those KOs where you have to wonder if the KO'd fighter would ever come back as strong, but that he did, winning the UFC light heavyweight belt from Chuck Liddell in his second fight with UFC.
He lost in in his first title defense against Forrest Griffin, but with a vengeful knockout of Wanderlei Silva last December, he is poised to fight Rashad Evans for a title shot against Lyoto Machida.
Honorable Mentions: Chris Leben, BJ Penn, Takanori Gomi, Tim Sylvia, Mark Hunt, Kazuyuki Fujita, Nick Diaz, Kiril Sidelnikov.
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