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With 2023 marking the 30th year of the UFC, it’s well worth looking back at the last three decades of unbelievable action inside the octagon.
The period from 2003 to 2012 saw the UFC burst into the mainstream, with new stars produced and some tremendous knockouts going down inside the octagon.
During this period, events became more frequent, leading to far more violent finishes than ever before – making this list hard to whittle down.
Here, though, are the best knockouts from every year of the UFC’s existence, with this list covering the period from 2003 to 2012.
For part one, featuring KOs in the years between 1993 and 2002, click here.
#1. Vitor Belfort vs. Marvin Eastman – UFC 43 (2003)
Vitor Belfort made his name in the UFC in the late 1990’s, but when he returned to the promotion in 2002, he looked past his prime in a loss to Chuck Liddell.
‘The Phenom’ rolled back the years in his next bout in the octagon, though. Faced with the tough Marvin Eastman, Belfort flew out of the blocks and decked his opponent with a pair of jumping knees.
With ‘The Beastman’ on the ground, the Brazilian then followed with a series of machine gun-like punches to seal the deal, signifying that he was back to his best.
When the smoke cleared, Eastman was left with a huge gash on his forehead, with some fans claiming he appeared to have been hit by a machete. It remains one of the scariest finishes of all time and stands as 2003’s best knockout.
#2. Yves Edwards vs. Josh Thomson – UFC 49 (2004)
2004 saw the UFC temporarily put the lightweight division on hold, so it’s ironic that the year’s best knockout was produced in the final 155-pound bout before that happened.
The clash between Josh Thomson and Yves Edwards was initially supposed to have seen the lightweight title on the line. While that didn’t turn out to be the case, it was still a fantastic, back and forth clash.
It was Edwards who got the final say, though. After wriggling free of a Thomson rear waistlock, he spun around and leapt into the air with a flying head kick, catching ‘The Punk’ cleanly on the side of the head and neck.
Thomson went down and out, and Edwards had produced a highlight moment for the ages, one that still appears on the UFC’s opening video to this day.
#3. Chuck Liddell vs. Randy Couture – UFC 52 (2005)
In 2003, then-40 year old Randy Couture produced one of the biggest upsets in UFC history when he stopped the surging Chuck Liddell, claiming the interim light heavyweight title in the process.
The two men rematched two years later in what turned out to be the biggest fight of all time to that point, thanks to the beginning of the TUF boom launching the promotion into the mainstream.
This time, ‘The Iceman’ got the last laugh. His detractors would point to an errant eye poke that seemed to throw Couture off his usual game, but nobody could question the punch that won Liddell the fight and the light heavyweight title.
It was arguably the best counterpunch in UFC history, as he caught a charging Couture with a brutally clean right hand, separating him from consciousness immediately.
There were perhaps more brutal knockouts in 2005, but this was the most picture-perfect, and it launched Liddell into the stratosphere as the promotion’s new poster-boy, too.
#4. Anderson Silva vs. Rich Franklin – UFC 64 (2006)
2006 saw a number of stunning knockouts, but it’s definitely arguable that the best was produced by Anderson Silva, who won the UFC middleweight title by brutally stopping Rich Franklin.
At that point, Franklin had looked practically unstoppable. A fighter with no clear weaknesses, he’d already made two successful defenses when he faced off with ‘The Spider’ in the latter part of the year.
However, Silva surprised everyone by completely dismantling ‘Ace’, using the plum clinch to abuse him with knees to the body and the head.
Eventually, one particularly brutal knee shattered Franklin’s nose and sent him staggering backwards. ‘The Spider’ needed no invitation to continue his assault, and one more knee put Franklin down for good.
It was the start of the longest title reign in UFC history, and the fact that Silva had won the gold in such devastating fashion makes this knockout stand out even more 17 years later.
#5. Gabriel Gonzaga vs. Mirko Cro Cop – UFC 70 (2007)
When the UFC signed PRIDE superstar Mirko Cro Cop in early 2007, it signified a new era for the promotion, an era in which Dana White and company could finally attract the world’s best fighters.
A devastating kickboxer, most fans felt like it’d only be a matter of time before Cro Cop claimed heavyweight gold in the octagon. When he met Gabriel Gonzaga in Manchester, UK, it felt like a stepping stone for him.
Nobody could’ve predicted what would happen next, though. After surprising Cro Cop with an early takedown and a series of elbows, ‘Napao’ unleashed the kind of head kick that the PRIDE star himself had made famous.
The kick landed flush and knocked Cro Cop out in an instant, leaving him like a corpse on the octagon floor. His career, essentially, never recovered.
The knockout didn’t quite launch Gonzaga into superstardom, but it remains probably the most violent head kick finish in UFC history, and easily stands as 2007’s best knockout.
#6. Rashad Evans vs. Chuck Liddell – UFC 88 (2008)
When Rashad Evans emerged from the second season of The Ultimate Fighter, he was written off as a point-fighter extraordinaire. Even when he began to finish foes like Jason Lambert and Sean Salmon, he couldn’t quite shake off his dull reputation.
When he was matched with the legendary Chuck Liddell in late 2008, then, few fans gave him a chance of winning, even if ‘The Iceman’ was reaching the end of his career.
As it turned out, though, Evans had a major secret weapon in the form of his speed. Put simply, he looked to be moving in an entirely different plane of reality to Liddell. In the end, it paid off.
The second round saw him beat Liddell to the punch, landing a brutal overhand right that dropped ‘The Iceman’ like he’d been shot. In one of the scariest moments in UFC history, it took the former light heavyweight champion nearly three minutes to come around.
The knockout, which was easily the nastiest of 2008, turned ‘Sugar’ into a star. Three months later, he claimed the light-heavyweight title.
#7. Anderson Silva vs. Forrest Griffin - UFC 101 (2009)
By 2009, Anderson Silva was widely recognized as not only the world’s best middleweight, but one of the best fighters in UFC history, too. However, he’d also been guilty of playing with his food, so to speak, in dull wins over the likes of Patrick Cote and Thales Leites.
The UFC’s response was to book him against renowned brawler and former light heavyweight champ Forrest Griffin in a foray up to 205 pounds. Griffin, naturally, promised to give ‘The Spider’ the fight of his life.
Unfortunately for Griffin, he failed miserably. Silva came into the bout in full virtuoso mode and produced the closest thing that the octagon had ever seen to a prime Muhammad Ali performance.
Griffin simply couldn’t land a thing on the Brazilian, who strutted around and caught the flailing former champion at will. Eventually, he knocked out his charging opponent with a backward-leaning jab that was akin to Ali’s famous ‘anchor punch’.
Griffin later admitted that he didn’t really know what had hit him. The fans could say the same, and this one remains one of the greatest knockouts in MMA history.
#8. Carlos Condit vs. Dan Hardy – UFC 120 (2010)
2010 had a number of great knockouts on offer, but the most outstanding was probably produced by future welterweight titleholder Carlos Condit at UFC 120.
‘The Natural Born Killer’ stepped into the octagon as a major villain, facing UK favorite Dan Hardy in his home country. The bout always did promise fireworks, and certainly didn’t disappoint.
After some early striking exchanges, both Condit and Hardy threw left hooks at the same time and it was Condit’s that got there first. He landed cleanly to Hardy’s jaw, and ‘The Outlaw’ was knocked out for the first time in his MMA career.
In a happy ending of sorts, it didn’t take long for the UK fans to embrace Condit after the fight. It would’ve been hard for them not to after such a knockout.
As for Hardy, when asked what went wrong for him, he simply replied “I got punched in the face,” making the understatement of the year.
#9. Lyoto Machida vs. Randy Couture – UFC 129 (2011)
2011 was the year that Anderson Silva introduced the front kick to the conscious UFC fans when he used the strike to knock out Vitor Belfort. However, it’s fair to say that his finish was topped by his good friend Lyoto Machida just two months later.
Like Silva, ‘The Dragon’ used a front kick to take out his opponent, in this case the legendary Randy Couture, who retired after the bout.
Unlike Silva, though, Machida faked his kick with a quick feint and hopped into it, essentially making it identical to the legendary ‘crane kick’ made popular by the 1980’s classic movie The Karate Kid.
Given Machida’s background in shotokan karate, it was truly poetic to see him unleash the move. The fact that he took out a legend in the process made it shine even more.
‘The Dragon’ scored plenty of tremendous knockouts during his career in the octagon, but none stand out quite so much as this classic.
#10. Edson Barboza vs. Terry Etim – UFC 142 (2012)
One of the selling points of the early UFC events was the fact that they were showing “real fighting,” as opposed to the martial arts shown in movies starring the likes of Jean-Claude Van Damme and Steven Segal.
Essentially, nobody was supposed to be able to make the flashy spinning kicks that Van Damme popularized work in a “real fight.” For the most part, that was proven true over the UFC’s first decade.
At the end of the promotion’s second decade, though, lightweight Edson Barboza blew that theory out of the water. He used a spinning wheel kick that Van Damme himself would’ve been proud of to take out Terry Etim, stunning everyone in the process.
The kick landed so cleanly that Etim was knocked unconscious before he even hit the ground, falling down as stiff as a board, instead.
Since that point we’ve seen a number of other fighters use spinning kicks to take out their opponents, but it’s arguable that even a decade later, Barboza’s remains the best spinning knockout – making it 2012’s most outstanding finish by far.
