Brock Lesnar and The 15 Most Powerful MMA Fighters Ever
Of all the attributes that you measure when evaluating an MMA fighter, strength and power are probably the two most difficult to measure. Anyone can catch someone on the jaw and knock them silly. That doesn't necessarily mean that they have great power.
What this list hopes to do is bring the most powerful MMA fighters of all time together in a definitive list. There are always going to be arguments about who should be and who shouldn't be put on a list of powerful fighters.
That's the beauty of personal opinion, everyone can have their own say.
How do you measure power?
For this particular list, we are looking at how much damage you did with a strike. It doesn't necessarily have to be a fighter that accumulated a large number of knockouts.
With that in mind, here are the 15 most powerful MMA fighters of all-time.
15. Antonio Silva
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Another fighter who is an imposing force in the ring, Antonio “Big Foot” Silva is as strong and powerful as anyone in the history of Strikeforce. Much like Bob Sapp, Silva uses his size to create leverage and this allows him to get his power.
I think that the Silva-Fedor fight on February 12th could be a challenge for Fedor because of Silva’s size. I don’t think that he wins but it is definitely a fight to watch.
14. Bob Sapp
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Forget the record and his overall technique, which is a mess, Bob Sapp has some of the most powerful punches in all of MMA. He has a huge body (6’5” 340 lbs) and he uses all of that to gain leverage and punch out his opponents.
Sapp is one of the biggest and most powerful MMA fighters ever and for that he makes the list.
13. Matt Hughes
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One of the most decorated UFC fighters of all-time, Matt Hughes joins the ranks of most powerful MMA fighters.
In his prime, he was the best welterweight fighter in the UFC. He struck fear into his opponents with his fast, powerful striking that allowed him to hold the UFC welterweight title two different times. He also holds the UFC record for most career victories with 18.
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12. Tito Ortiz
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Tito Ortiz has made a career out of just pounding his opponents into oblivion. He is one of the meanest fighters that have ever competed in MMA. He goes in there with no regard for himself or his opponent.
Ortiz knows one way to fight: hard and fast.
He wants to just bash in his opponents head, even if the referee tries to stop it. Ortiz doesn’t need or want an official in the ring to tell him to stop the beating.
11. Georges St-Pierre
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Similar to Anderson Silva, it is getting difficult to come up with new superlatives to describe Georges St-Pierre. He is so fast and so powerful that no one has been able to even take a round from him in over three years. He jabbed the crap out of Josh Koscheck in December in a one-sided title fight.
The best possible thing that could happen for UFC and the fans is Anderson Silva defeats Vitor Belfort in February and GSP dominates Jake Shields in April because that would basically force the dream matchup of GSP-Anderson Silva.
10. Mauricio Rua
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Shogun could be the most powerful fighter going in UFC today. He has such great striking ability to begin with. Then, you add in the fact that he packs a ton of power into each strike that he throws and you have one of the most powerful fighters in the history of the sport.
Another thing that he does that a lot of powerful fighters take for granted is makes great use of his legs as a weapon.
Looking forward to the Evans fight in March for the UFC Light Heavyweight Title.
9. Brock Lesnar
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The most polarizing fighter in MMA today (or maybe he’s not in MMA anymore, who knows) Brock Lesnar hasn’t mastered the craft but he is as powerful as anyone fighting today.
A chiseled mountain of a man, Lesnar made his name as wrestler in WWE. He made an instant impact when he made his MMA debut in 2007.
Lesnar’s all-around game still needs work, given his age maybe it will never get better, but his power cannot be denied.
8. BJ Penn
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When the story of BJ Penn is written it will likely be about what could have been as opposed to what was.
You can’t deny the greatness of Penn but there were a number of fights that he just seemed completely disinterested in and that ended up costing him.
That little rant aside, Penn uses his power and striking game to set up his entire offense. He packs such power into his punches that his opponents often have difficulty planning for his submission game because he is so dangerous with his punches.
7. Shane Carwin
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With 12 victories, all of them in the first round, Shane Carwin doesn’t like to waste time when he fights. Even in his loss to Brock Lesnar at UFC 116, Carwin still showed how strong and powerful he is.
If he could develop his cardio, he would be one of the most dangerous fighters in UFC. As it stands, he is still really, really good and can compete with anyone.
One thing to keep an eye on is Carwin’s back, which caused him to pull out of a fight with Roy Nelson. He had surgery on the back and that could have an affect on his power when he does come back.
6. Quinton “Rampage” Jackson
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Rampage Jackson doesn’t just want to win. He wants to punch you the entire fight and show you no mercy until the referee jumps in to stop the beating. He would move in on his opponent right away and start swinging until he hit something.
Also, in his favor Rampage delivered one of the most vicious power bombs that you will ever see in an MMA fight against Ricardo Arona in 2004. Rampage always fights at a very frenetic pace and his power has made him on of the best in the world.
5. Thiago Alves
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The Pitbull is a very appropriate nickname for Thiago Alves because he attacks his opponents like a wild dog. If he gets into that zone in a fight, there are very few fighters that can stop him. He comes out and just attacks for as long as he can.
Alves has had issues making weight in his fights, which is a big knock on him. But if you saw him at UFC 124, he made weight and he looked healthy and performed at a very high level against John Howard. He is only 27 years old, so maybe this is the start of something that he can build upon for the future.
4. Chuck Liddell
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Arguably the biggest star in UFC history, Chuck Liddell added his name to this list with his special punch that he used to end a number of fights.
Liddell had some of the best striking that you will ever see from a fighter. The power that he put behind his strikes was the key to his long and successful hall-of-fame career.
Liddell has retired from fighting but his legacy will live on forever.
3. Wanderlei Silva
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It’s a general rule when you are nicknamed “The Axe Murderer” that you are going to be included on a list of most powerful fighters. Wanderlei Silva is one of the great boxing fighters in the history of MMA.
Very few fighters, past or present, can claim to pack as much power into a punch as Silva does. In fact, personally I would say that he and Mirko Cro Cop are the two most powerful fighters that I have ever seen.
2. Anderson Silva
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What is there really left to say about Anderson Silva that hasn’t been said before?
He doesn’t really have any weaknesses as a fighter. He does everything really well. Some people want to say that because of his fight with Chael Sonnen that he could be losing something. I don’t know about all that.
What I do know is there is no one in UFC who can match Silva’s level of dominance. He has been rolling through the middleweight division, though his toughest test could come against Vitor Belfort in February.
1. Mirko Cro Cop
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In his prime there was probably no more powerful MMA fighter then Mirko Cro Cop. He knew one thing going into a fight, which was that he wanted to knock you out. He wasn’t going to be satisfied until he got his opponent to fall over in a heap.
Even today Cro Cop doesn’t have the speed and overall ability that he used to but he still packs a huge punch. He is a bad man and he has the power to prove it.
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