10 best active kickboxers in the UFC, ranked

The UFC is the hub of elite MMA, and as a result, it has experienced countless shifts in the mixed martial arts meta. During MMA's inception, Brazilian jiu-jitsu reigned as the supreme martial art. The guards of renowned BJJ specialists were so widely feared that their vaunted effectiveness became the stuff of MMA legend.

However, as the sport progressed, wrestling emerged as the strongest foundation for aspiring mixed martial artists. A range of former UFC champions from that era owed their success to the wrestling skillset they adopted as their primary weapon inside the octagon. Yet, as the sport evolved, more fighters from different backgrounds arose.

While a large percentage of modern-day MMA fighters possess serviceable talent in all facets of the sport, today is the age of strikers. More strikers are champions than grapplers and wrestlers, and many top contenders have emerged as elite kickboxers. In honor of the new era, this list compiles and ranks the top 10 best kickboxers in the UFC today.

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Who are the best kickboxers active in the UFC today?

#10. Jiří Procházka

The reigning UFC light heavyweight champion is an amateur Muay Thai world champion and an unorthodox kickboxer whose combination of speed and punching power often disarms his foes.

Jiří Procházka sits only as the 10th best kickboxer in the UFC because of his status as a double-edged sword. The very tools that the Czech phenom employs to great effect are the same ones that work to his own detriment.

Procházka stands from a wide, bladed stance. This benefits him by allowing him to enter and exit punching range by bouncing back and forth, ultimately serving as the foundation for his counter-punching abilities. He darts forward to draw out his opponent's punches, only to bounce out of his foe's reach before throwing his counters over the top.

Unfortunately, the drawback of standing so wide is that it overexposes Procházka's lead leg to low kicks, which past foes have capitalized on. Furthermore, despite the reigning 205 pound champion's impressive 80-inch reach, he typically nullifies his own reach advantage due to how often he stays in the face of his opponent to create extended exchanges in the pocket.

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#9. Giga Chikadze

A former Glory kickboxing featherweight, Giga Chikadze was riding a 9-fight win streak in the UFC featherweight division before his thrilling clash with Calvin Kattar at UFC on ESPN 32. While Chikadze lost the bout, his kickboxing remains impressive, especially when considering the competitive depth of the UFC featherweight division.

A tricky striker, 'Ninja' often engages his foes from an orthodox stance before stepping up into a non-commital, lead-left high kick. While his foe is preoccupied with the threat of a left high kick from a well-known kickboxer with knockout power, Chikadze retracts his kicking leg, stepping back into the southpaw stance instead of his original orthodox one.

Once he does so, he relies on his opponent's willingness to try countering his left high kick off of a parry. However, as his foe steps forward, they're unknowingly being drawn into a powerful rear-left round body kick that's been famously coined 'The Giga Kick'. A similar setup enabled him to defeat UFC veteran Cub Swanson at UFC on ESPN 23.

While the Georgian is mainly a kicker, his boxing is nothing to scoff at, especially since he uses the threat of his kicks to create openings for his punches. However, he is not without his flaws, as Chikadze steps in deep with almost every strike he throws, exhausting himself if he cannot knock his foes unconscious.

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#8. Zhang Weili

Former UFC strawweight champion Zhang Weili is one of the most exciting fighters on the UFC roster. Stylistically, she is as powerful as she is skillful. Possessing a breadth of fast-twitch muscle fibers, 'Magnum' is incredibly explosive. However, she conceals her explosions well in order to mitigate the risk of being countered on her way inside.

She does so by bouncing back and forth, employing the same tactic that Jiří Procházka does to draw out his opponent’s strikes. Due to her explosiveness, every time Zhang bounces into range, her opponent must respect the threat she presents. No fighter wants to react too late to their foe's strikes, because the strikes a fighter does not see coming are often the ones that lead to knockouts.

Against 'Magnum', her foes face a fighter who is not only lightning-quick, but extraordinarily powerful. Thus, even the idea of the threat she might present is enough to coax an overreaction to a simple bounce or shift in weight. Alternatively, her opponents sometimes retreat into defensive shells.

Both outcomes are desirable, as they either allow Zhang to draw her foes into her own counter-punches or close the distance with lead punches without being countered herself. Doing so worked to great effect against Joanna Jędrzejczyk, a former Muay Thai world champion who Zhang defeated at UFC 248 and UFC 275.

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#7. José Aldo

José Aldo remains the longest-reigning featherweight champion in UFC history. He is a legend in MMA, having found success against multiple generations of fighters across two separate promotions. In the past, Aldo was known for his brutal low kicks. While he does not throw them nearly as often as he used to, they're still a sight to behold when he does employ them.

The Brazilian's low kicks are among the most powerful in all of MMA. The former world champion always turns his hips fully into every kick he throws, and to avoid getting his low kicks checked, Aldo does two things. First, he does not step in with his low kicks to generate power. He simply turn his hips into his kicks. Second, Aldo only throw kicks at the end of his boxing combinations.

By initiating a combination, Aldo forces his opponents to step backwards, rendering them unable to lift and turn their leg to check his low kicks, lest they be knocked down while moving backwards with one of their legs airborne. On the defensive front, Aldo himself remains difficult to low kick. Even the calf kick, which many MMA fighters struggle to defend against, finds no success against him.

Against a foe eager to calf kick him, Aldo simply pulls his heel to the back of his thigh, causing his opponent's calf kick to sweep through empty space, exposing them to his counters while they're forced to reset their stance. Because his opponents cannot low kick him, the Brazilian is free to throw his jab and box without fear.

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#6. Valentina Shevchenko

Valentina Shevchenko is a former Muay Thai world champion and the reigning queen of the UFC women's flyweight division. She is supernaturally patient, fighting as a low-volume counter-striker who has mastered the art of frustrating her foes into committing mistakes.

From the outside, Shevchenko is content to outpoint her foes with low kicks, maintaining a long enough distance for her to effortlessly slide her own legs out of the way of her opponent's low kicks. If her opponents stay at a distance, 'Bullet' is content to simply outpoint them with kicks. However, the ideal scenario is that by maintaining such a long distance and causing her foes to miss frequently, she frustrates them into closing the distance.

Once her adversary obliges, Shevchenko pulls back at the waist every so slightly to counter her opponents with check hooks. Alternatively, she pulls her leg away and throws non-committal spinning back-kicks and body kicks, so she is rarely in position to be hit.

Upon conditioning her opponents to this approach, she causes them to grow wilder. The more they miss, the more they convince themselves they need to land the knockout blow, leading them to be knocked out instead. This proved to be successful even against fellow kickboxing world champion Joanna Jędrzejczyk, whom Shevchenko defeated her four times (thrice in kickboxing, once in MMA at UFC 231).

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#5. Stephen Thompson

At one point, Stephen 'Wonderboy' Thompson was arguably the best striker in MMA. At the peak of his career, Thompson twice challenged for the UFC welterweight championship against Tyron Woodley. While he was ultimately unsuccessful, 'Wonderboy' made an impressive account of himself against a foe no one else had challenged as champion.

Before the onset of his MMA career, Thompson was an undefeated kickboxer whose style translated well inside the octagon. In the cage, 'Wonderboy' fights from a wide, bladed stance that causes him to stand sidewards. Like Jiří Procházka, Thompson bounces in and out of range. However, the American karateka maintains an exceptionally long distance that serves a myriad of strategic purposes.

First, the long distance from which he operates forces his foes to take additional steps whenever they close the distance, earning Thompson more time to make reads while simultaneously telegraphing his foe's intent. Second, it is designed to frustrate his foe into lunging recklessly once Thompson simply retreats and circles out of range every time they come forward.

However, when his foes lunge forward, Thompson steps in with them, creating a collision between his straight left and his foe's chin. Additionally, despite his wide stance, 'Wonderboy' bears no vulnerabilities to low kicks, as he often invites his opponent's low kicks by exposing his lead leg deliberately.

When his foes try targeting it with a low kick, Thompson slides out of range before sliding back in with either a counter-punch or side kick while his foe's kicking leg is still airborne, something he did to great effect against Vicente Luque.

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#4. Israel Adesanya

The reigning UFC middleweight champion is one of the most puzzling strikers his divisional rivals has ever seen. Israel Adesanya has a storied and successful kickboxing career that predates his transition to MMA. Inside the octagon, he has proven even more effective than he did in his days as a high-level kickboxer.

Long and rangy, 'The Last Stylebender' uses his physical attributes well, forcing his opponents to engage him from a distance longer than what they're accustomed to. On the outside, Adesanya repeatedly stings his foes with step-in jabs and hard low kicks if they refuse to close the distance against him. Once he's established the threat of his powerful low kicks, Adesanya's feints begin working in his favor.

While most fighters feint with their hands and shoulders, the Nigerian also feints with his hips, thrusting them to tease a phantom low kick. If his foes refuse to engage him, they sit at the mercy of Adesanya's feints, allowing him to dictate every striking engagement. Against foes who dare to close the distance against him, he proves deadly.

He pulls back at the waist as his opponents step forward, causing their punches to overextend. Once his foe is out of position, the Nigerian twists his upper-body at an angle, stunning his adversary with counter-hooks through their open side. Doing so led to his knockout wins over former UFC champion Robert Whittaker and one-time UFC title challenger Paulo Costa.

The difficulty opponents encounter in landing blows to Adesanya's head also causes them to fixate on his chin.They convince themselves that because of how often they miss, the next punch or kick they throw must be thrown with maximum power, so that if anything does land, it will be a knockout blow.

This, however, works in Adesanya's favor, as it causes his opponents to overextend even more, ultimately exposing them to his counters as they bring themselves out of position.

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#3. Rafael Fiziev

As a former world champion Muay Thai kickboxer and current kickboxing coach at Tiger Muay Thai, Rafael Fiziev is a surging contender in what is arguably the deepest and most talent-rich weight class in MMA: the UFC lightweight division. The Russian recently defeated former UFC lightweight champion Rafael dos Anjos by knockout at UFC on ESPN 39. However, prior to that bout, Fiziev faced UFC lightweight staple Brad Riddell, a skilled kickboxer himself.

High-level kickboxers tend to have a habit of leaning out of range when their opponents come forward, forcing their foes to overextend on punches. Fiziev, however, puts his defensive lean to offensive use by leaning back into range right after avoiding his foe's strikes. Upon leaning back into range, the former Muay Thai world champion uses the momentum of his punches to sting his opponents with counters.

He often punctuates his combinations with hard kicks to the body, which can be difficult for his foes to defend due to Fiziev's use of stance-switching to shift the alignment of his strikes. However, Fiziev's use of misdirection extends beyond mere stance-switching. The Russian kickboxer incorporates level changes when kicking or glancing in one direction before kicking in another to disrupt his own rhythm.

Additionally, he's an especially calculated striker in the clinch, often using it to throw elbows off the break when his opponents exit with their hands low. Alternatively, Fiziev steps across his foe, forcing them to step into him and the path of a hard elbow.

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#2. Cedric Doumbe

One of the greatest kickboxers of all-time, Cedric Doumbe is a former two-time Glory kickboxing world champion and the UFC's newest welterweight acquisition. While he is the owner of a 2-0 MMA record, the UFC debutant is a veteran of 83 kickboxing bouts.

As a striker, Doumbe is unorthodox, using a breadth of non-standard movements in his matchups. His stance, for one, is atypical in Dutch kickboxing circles. Doumbe positions his body at an angle with a bladed stance, enabling him to more easily commit his weight to his jabs whenever he steps in.

Despite his bladed stance, the former world champion kickboxer's opponents struggle to engage him in the pocket. Whenever he's backed up and his space is crowded, Doumbe immediately flattens out his stance, shuffling from side to side to misdirect his foes until they commit to a punch. This allows him to slip on the outside of the punch with a counter to his opponent's open side.

While most fighters only pivot at angles to slip punches through their opponent's open side, Doumbe pivots and turns his hips into kicks that he smashes in through their open sides, targeting either the head or body. The UFC debutant uses feints, fakes, and stance readjustments, going from bladed to squared and then back again as he builds his offense into layers.

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#1. Alex Pereira

The first Glory kickboxer to capture two championships in different weight classes is expected to face Israel Adesanya for middleweight supremacy in the UFC. Alex Pereira's storied rivalry with 'The Last Stylebender' is due to the former's two victories over the reigning UFC middleweight champion.

Not only was Pereira good enough to defeat Adesanya in the past, he's only improved since their last matchup. 'Poatan' possesses one of the greatest left hooks in kickboxing history. He understands that in order to land a left hook, an opponent must first be in position to be countered by one.

The Brazilian power-puncher uses this knowledge to tweak his stance by keeping his shoulders square and his chest open. Whenever he steps into range, seemingly exposing himself to his opponent's left hook, Pereira's competing left hook is already halfway complete due to his stance. While his foes swing their left hook through a wider, longer arc, Pereira simply intercepts them with his own.

The shorter distance his left hook has to travel is what led to his knockout against Israel Adesanya when the pair last crossed paths. Even beyond his left hook, Pereira's skillset is a dangerous tool, as he attacks the body, cuts off angles, incorporates low kicks, and defends against them in magnificent fashion.