It's Going To Take More Than That! The 10 Best Chins In The UFC

Some guys you can knock down, but some guys you just can't seem to knock out.

The UFC has guys like that—guys that are strong in the chin that you can knock down but you can't really knock out.

As a matter of fact, there are ten guys in the annals of UFC history that have shown that they can take a punch and still bring it.

Join me, if you would, in a look at the ten men that have proven that they can take a shot like a champ.

10. Mark Coleman

Mark Coleman is a prime example of the iron chin. He's been knocked out a few times in his career, but like most everyone on this list, getting the KO was far from a simple feat. Check out what it took for Shogun Rua to avenge his loss to Coleman at UFC 93 if you don't buy that Coleman has a hell of a chin.

shogun from frevo lution on Vimeo.

9. Tyson Griffin

He's a tough cookie that's had himself a few rough outings in the UFC, but he's still an exciting guy to watch.

What amazes me about Griffin though is that he's fought the likes of Frankie Edgar, Sean Sherk, Clay Guida, Hermes Franca and Evan Dunham, and yet none of those names have knocked out the young Xtreme Couture lightweight.

No one has even been able to turn his iron jaw into a glass one, which makes Griffin such an interesting fighter to watch in the cage.

You want to think he'll get the KO or get KOed, but somehow you never see him get too close to the latter.

8. Diego Sanchez

The Yes Man, the Nightmare, the number 8 chin on the list.

Truthfully, Diego is starting to show that his chin might actually be a bit more suspect than previously thought, seeing as how he's been rocked not only by BJ Penn, but he was nearly the recipient of his career's first TKO loss by strikes.

Thus, he almost didn't make the list.

Having mentioned the Penn fight though, it's a bit tough to say that Diego hasn't developed one hell of a chin over the course of his career—after all, his last two fights are really the only two fights in which he has shown to have a suspect button.

A normal opponent of BJ Penn's would have succumbed to his lethal, crisp boxing and gone down by it or started to go down by it, but Diego isn't your average opponent.

The man can take a punch and still keep going, though not as insanely as another fighter with an iron chin who just happens to be a former opponent of Sanchez.

Still, if you sent Sanchez to prison for having a glass jaw, you've sentenced an innocent man to prison. They come tougher than the button of Sanchez, but you can't argue that Sanchez's is a tough button in its own right.

7. Patrick Cote

On the unblemished eleven-fight streak of Anderson Silva, only three names have not been knocked out or submitted by The Spider

Patrick Cote is one of those names, but he's not one of those names that has gone a full twenty-five minutes with Silva.

Their UFC 90 bout ended when Cote blew out his knee at the start of round three, but even in the first two when Silva could have knocked Cote out, there was very little indication that Cote was really rocked from those punches.

He took the blow and may have been stunned a little bit, but there was little indication that the shots from Silva did any damage to the facial structure of Cote.

If Cote's face really was damaged by the blows, he did a damn good job of hiding it.

6. Anderson Silva

Anderson Silva, one of the best pound-for-pound fighters in the world, arguably the best middleweight in the sport, and the number 6 toughest chin on the list.

Anderson is one of a few well-established fighters in the UFC to have never been knocked out in the UFC, but he came close to being finished by Travis Lutter despite Lutter coming into the fight overweight, thus turning the fight into a three rounder.

Still, the shots Lutter fed Silva aren't like the shots that Roy Nelson laid on Kimbo Slice. They were heavy shots.

It was Lutter's failed armbar attempt that saved Silva from his first ever TKO loss in the cage.

Nevertheless, it's not like Silva had shown much of a glass jaw there either. Honestly, I don't know that the shots had much effect on them as we thought they did.

Revisit the Nat Marquardt fight, and tell me if you can better identify how his chin holds up here:

MMA | UFC 73 Anderson Silva vs Nate Marquardt

5. Mauricio Rua

The Shogun, the master of Chute Boxe Madness, and the man who stands at the halfway point of this list.

He's taken shots from Rogerio Nogueira, Mark Coleman, Lyoto Machida, and the like, and yet the man's only loss in the KO column was the TKO by injury that he suffered at the hands of Coleman in PRIDE.

Every time a shot lands on Shogun, he takes the shot and then just regenerates, sometimes even operating as if the shot had never landed.

There's no sugarcoating it: Mauricio Rua is one tough Brazilian bad ass with one tough chin.

4. Antonio Minotauro Nogueira

With the above photo, you'd think maybe Randy Couture might have this slot.

I mean, he took that punch from Minotauro like a champ.

Sadly, the former five-time heavyweight champ doesn't get the slot, but the man who rematches Frank Mir at UFC 119 in Indianapolis does.

Anyone not named Frank Mir or Cain Velasquez has had trouble with finishing off Big Nog with a KO punch.

From his rise to the top of PRIDE to the night he became interim UFC Heavyweight Champ, the main difficulty for every opponent he faced was trying to knock him out.

Before UFC 92, nobody could do that.

Frank Mir shattered that long streak of never really being finished by strikes in a fight, but Nog still goes in the books as one of the best damn chins in the UFC right now.

3. Clay Guida

As far as lightweights go, Clay Guida has one of the hardest chins in MMA, let alone the UFC.

Tyson Griffin, Nate Diaz, Mac Danzig, Diego Sanchez— they've all tried to stop Guida.

Hell, Diego tried slugging with Guida, but not even he could make Guida's iron chin glassy.

Not even Kenny Florian could KO Guida—it took a rear naked choke to beat Guida.

So I have to say, Guida deserves the title of "Iron Chin Lightweight", because you could try to KO Guida, and doing so might save your life.

Thing is with Guida, you're lucky if you get halfway close to that benchmark.

2. Cain Velasquez

Cain's cardio is scary for a heavyweight, but his chin scares the hell out of me.

Cheick Kongo is by no stretch a feather-handed striker —when Kongo lands shots, Kongo LANDS shots.

He landed some heavy shots to Cain Velasquez, including one combination that was supposed to end Velasquez's then 5-0 pro run in a pro career.

Cain took the shots like his face had a metal implant of some weird variety, but Cain still managed to get the better of Cheick in that fight.

The chin on Cain is a solid reason why he could have a shot to beat Brock Lesnar.

The only thing harder than Cain's chin is the shots he lays in to get the stoppage on his opponents.

1. Brock Lesnar

Brock Lesnar is a human, but a freakish one at that.

He took Shane Carwin's shots, and he felt them, but he withstood the shots being laid in on him, and he came back hungry for more in round two.

He didn't answer Carwin's shots, but then again he didn't get an answer to the "Death Clutch"—Lesnar never got a response to the arm triangle that he sunk in beautifully on Carwin, forcing him to tap.

That Lesnar was able to survive those shots is nothing short of phenomenal, considering how heavy Carwin's hands are, but Lesnar did prove that he can take and give, especially when it comes to exchanging soupbones in the Octagon.

Agree To Disagree: Who do you think has one of the UFC's best chins?

I might have missed some names, and I know everyone will disagree with how this was structured, but for the record, I never really intended to make this "10 Best Chins In The UFC" list into a ranking of the ten best chins.

I intended to just showcase ten guys who were tough to KO or knock down, and what it is about that trait that I respected.

How the real best Chins in the UFC rank is up to YOU.

So tell me, which UFC beast has one hell of a chin.

You be the judge.

The floor's open for free discussion once again.

Thanks to you, the Bleacherholics, for viewing this look at ten of the toughest and best buttons in the UFC.

Didn't see someone you wanted? Check out this slideshow:

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/425498-like-punching-a-brick-wall-ten-more-of-the-ufcs-best-chins