Sherdog’s Top 10: Greatest Punchers

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5. Mark Hunt

While most of the other fighters on this list have something in the way of ancillary tools with which to back up their punching prowess, Hunt relies on his hands to the exclusion of almost everything else. Sure, he looses the occasional low kick and was reduced to throwing elbows against Antonio Silva after he broke his hand, but for the most part, Hunt relies on his ridiculous punching power to win fights.

Hunt packs undeniable force in his squat, surprisingly explosive frame, but few fighters have more clever tools for setting up their kill shots. He is an absolute master of manipulating rhythm and speed, showing his opponent first a probing and then a sharp jab and later whipping a vicious left hook-right cross combination at full speed. He throws a lovely straight right to the body to move his opponent’s hands up and down and melds his slips and head movement together seamlessly with his angles and counters as he wades into the pocket.

It takes time to make a masterful striker, and Hunt is proof positive of that. He was a pure brawler early in his kickboxing career -- his fight with Ray Sefo was absolute madness -- and routinely threw flying knees and all sorts of wild stuff, but over the years, he has steadily polished his game to focus on the intangibles of timing, rhythm and distance.

Few fighters in MMA’s history have taken a more roundabout path to the top; and few have done so while producing such arresting visuals: Roy Nelson slowly toppling to the mat after eating an uppercut, the X-ray of Stefan Struve’s jaw broken in half from a ridiculous left hook, cleanly dropping Chieck Kongo and letting him back up only to put him on the canvas for good shortly thereafter. Hunt is one of a kind and easily one of the sport’s greatest punchers.

Number 4 » He is almost exclusively a boxer. He knows how to do other things -- there is plenty of video of him kicking and working on the ground in training -- but when push comes to shove, the Brazilian chooses to throw hands. His game revolves around a sharp jab that he uses to dictate range and pull his opponent’s hands in front of his face, a long right hand to the body that draws his opponent’s hands downwards and a blazing overhand right, right uppercut and left hook that exploit the holes created by his bread-and-butter strikes. These are basic tools but the way he puts them together and the speed and mechanical precision with which he throws them is unique.