Sherdog’s Top 10: Greatest Heavyweights

7. Junior dos Santos

Dos Santos’ prime period was great but brief. He was UFC champion for just two fights, knocking out Cain Velasquez in the first round, then defending his title once, with a second-round knockout of Frank Mir. Yet it's easy to forget how amazing the 15-1 “Cigano” was that point. He had knocked out Fabricio Werdum in a little over a minute and Stefan Struve in less than a minute. He had knocked out legendary striker and top 15 heavyweight Mirko Filipovic, knocked out a then very dangerous Gabriel Gonzaga in the first round, and then utterly dominated two highly skilled grapplers with iron chins in Shane Carwin and Roy Nelson en route to easy decisions. Dos Santos' striking was by far the best we had seen for MMA at that point, and seemingly perfectly tailored to the sport, as he kept his hands low to prevent takedowns and also add power and unpredictability to his punches.

Alas, dos Santos received a brutal amount of punishment in his two losses to Velasquez and over the following years, he became noticeably slower, absorbing more blows, and his chin became increasingly weak. He still scored some nice victories, like a narrow five-round decision over Stipe Miocic, the fantastic wheel-kick knockout of Mark Hunt, drubbing a then very dangerous Ben Rothwell, even knocking out Tai Tuivasa and Derrick Lewis in back to back fights as recently as 2018 and 2019, but he was clearly on the decline. Still, recent setbacks shouldn't tarnish an overall legendary career.

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