There’s a whole lot of firepower on this Saturday’s UFC 295 card in New York City.
Of course, that’s usually the case when there are heavyweights on the bill.
The Madison Square Garden show will be co-headlined by an interim heavyweight title fight, as Tom Aspinall takes on Sergei Pavlovich.
While the English fighter has plenty of stopping power, Pavlovich might be the biggest knockout threat in the UFC right now, having won his last six fights by KO. That’s the longest active KO streak in the promotion, and the fact that he scored all of them in the first round makes it all the more impressive. The Russian is a runaway train.
Pavlovich and Aspinall are far from the only KO strikers set to compete in MSG. The main event will feature two similarly dangerous fighters, with Jiri Procházka taking on Alex Pereira with the vacant light heavyweight belt on the line. Both have a long history of knocking people senseless in the cage.
In the spirit of this explosive fight card, we’ve compiled a list of the most dangerous knockout artists in the UFC right now. Scroll on to see who made the cut.
As mentioned, Sergei Pavlovich is the man behind the longest knockout streak in the UFC, at six, and they all occurred in the first round.
Some of them were so quick he didn’t break a sweat. He needed only 55 seconds to knock out Derrick Lewis in 2022, and 54 seconds to stop Tai Tuivasa later the same year.
While Pavlovich’s streak is impressive, his propensity for knockouts is nothing new. When he entered the UFC at 11-0 in 2022, he already had nine KO wins on his record. While he suffered his lone career loss to Alistair Overeem in his UFC debut, that was the setback that preceded his current streak.
Clearly, he is a dangerous fighter on the feet. Ordinarily, the surest way to beat someone like the Russian is to take them to the ground and tire them out, drown them in punches or submit them.
Tom Aspinall has the chops to pull something like that off, but last time Pavlovich was faced with a grappler in Curtis Blaydes, he simply did what he always does and knocked his foe senseless in less than five minutes.
Former Glory kickboxer Alex Pereira has only had 10 MMA fights, but he has managed to earn a spot on the UFC roster, win the promotion’s middleweight title and, most relevantly for this article, knock six people out.
That includes reigning middleweight champion Sean Strickland and former champion Israel Adesanya.
Of course, any long-term Pereira fans could have told you about his knockout prowess years ago. He was no less vicious in the kickboxing ring, where he tallied 21 knockouts in 33 victories. Among those were stoppages of Adesanya and another future UFC fighter in Dustin Jacoby, who is now a top-15 light heavyweight.
Pereira doesn’t always shut his opponent’s lights out. He can employ smart, drawn-out strategies when he needs to. But there is no question he is one of the last people on Earth you’d want punching and kicking you with fight-ending intentions.
Much like Pereira, Jiri Procházka is one of the most dangerous knockout strikers in the UFC right now. Where he differs from his opponent is that he doesn’t come from a kickboxing background and instead employs a striking style that draws on aspects of kickboxing, muay thai and karate.
His unusual striking style works very well.
Just look at his track record in the UFC. He scored a submission win over Glover Teixeira in his last fight, which was preceded by two highlight-reel knockouts: a spinning elbow that put down former title challenger Dominick Reyes, and an overhand right that spelled the end for another former title challenger in Volkan Oezdemir.
Before joining the UFC, Procházka spent time competing in the Rizin ring, where he had a similar habit for flashy, unpredictable KOs, including wins over former UFC fighters CB Dollaway and Fabio Maldonado, former Strikeforce champion Muhammed Lawal, future Bellator light heavyweight champ Vadim Nemkov, future PFL heavyweight champion Bruno Cappelozza and Japanese veteran Kazuyuki Fujita.
All told, he’s scored 25 knockouts in 29 pro wins. That’s ridiculous.
Lightweight is one of the best divisions in the UFC right now, but it doesn’t produce quite as many devastating knockouts as the divisions above it.
Unless, of course, Justin Gaethje is fighting.
His stopping power was on full display in his last fight, when he scored a highlight-reel knockout win over Dustin Poirier, who is one of the best lightweights in UFC history.
Gaethje scored that particular knockout with a head kick, but gets it done far more often with his fists. Cases in point: His ferocious performances against Tony Ferguson, Donald Cerrone, Edson Barboza and Michael Johnson—all world-class lightweights when he entered the Octagon with them.
What makes Gaethje’s track record for highlight reels truly amazing is that he’s not even a striker at his roots. He got his start on the wrestling mats and got so good on the feet that we almost never see his takedowns.
No. 11 light heavyweight contender Khalil Rountree isn’t as well known as the likes of Alex Pereira and Justin Gaethje, but there is no question he is one of the scariest knockout artists in the UFC.
The American has always had a ton of stopping power. That power was on full display early on in his UFC career, when he scored vicious knockouts against Gokhan Saki, who is a former Glory kickboxing champion, and Paul Craig, who was recently ranked at light heavyweight and now middleweight.
Over the last few years, Rountree has bolstered his natural knockout power with some very impressive refinements to his striking game, due in large part to the time he spent learning Muay Thai at the source in Thailand.
Those improvements have helped him put together a four-fight win streak that includes highlight reel knockouts of Modestas Bukauskas, Karl Roberson and most recently, former heavyweight Chris Daukus.
Rountree will need all his technique and power in his December 2 showdown with fellow striker Azamat Murzakanov, but if he comes out on top, he’ll be looking at a top-10 opponent—maybe even the Pereira-Prochazka loser.
Derrick Lewis has fallen on hard times, with five losses in his last eight fights, but make no mistake: He is still the UFC’s knockout king. We’re not saying he’s the most dangerous knockout artist in the UFC, but the record for most knockouts in the promotion’s history is still his, at 14.
Needless to say, Lewis has put a lot of people to sleep in the Octagon. Some of his most notable performances include stoppages of Curtis Blaydes, Aleksei Oleinik, Alexander Volkov, Marcin Tybura, and Travis Browne – all high-level heavyweights when he sparked them.
Lately, he’s increasingly been finding himself on the wrong end of highlight reel KOs—including one at the hands of Pavlovich—but even at 38, he still hits like a truck.
Just ask Marcos Rogerio De Lima, who had a two-fight streak derailed by a 33-second knockout loss to Lewis in late July. It was a flying knee that did it. Not bad for a guy who cuts down to the 265-pound heavyweight limit.
We haven’t been seeing a ton of knockouts from Edson Barboza lately—or wins, for that matter—but the lightweight turned featherweight is one of the flashiest and most unpredictable knockout artists in MMA history, and as he proved in his recent decision victory over Sodiq Yusuff, he hasn’t really slowed down much, even after more than a decade in the UFC.
Barboza’s resume is littered with stunning knockout wins—we’re talking all-time great KOs. The best example is undoubtedly his jaw-dropping wheel kick finish of Terry Etim in 2012, but his knockouts of Evan Dunham, Beneil Dariush and Dan Hooker were also straight out of a video game.
Those wins all occurred before 2018, but Barboza has had some pretty amazing KOs more recently, too, most notably his stoppages against Shane Burgos and Billy Quarantillo, the product of a right hook and knee respectively.
Maybe his best days are behind him, but this list wouldn’t be complete without him.
