Who on UFC roster can challenge Derrick Lewis’ knockout record?

Derrick Lewis added to his UFC-leading knockout total this past weekend, dispatching opponent Rodrigo Nascimento inside three rounds in their heavyweight main event.

“The Black Beast” widened the gap atop the leaderboard after earning his 15th career victory by knockout or technical knockout under the UFC banner since debuting with the organization 10 years ago. 

Lewis is 39 and fell short on two previous title shot opportunities – a submission loss to Daniel Cormier in 2018 and a TKO loss to Ciryl Gane in 2021 with an interim belt on the line – but has since carved out a nice role as a heavyweight gatekeeper who tends to shut the door violently and celebrate ruthlessly.

Ranked outside the top 10, Lewis hasn’t fared well in his recent outings when facing top-10 competition yet has knocked out anyone ranked in the 10-15 range looking to get a single-digit number next to their name like we saw in his wins over Nascimento, Marcos Rogério de Lima and Chris Daukaus

“I’m durable, and I still have that power later in the rounds,” Lewis said after his latest victory over an opponent he had not previously heard of. “Hopefully, if they have any more taxicab drivers like that I’d love to fight them.”

Lewis has been featured in a whopping 11 main events since 2017 and is an ideal candidate to headline Fight Night cards in front of a crowd similar to what went down in St. Louis. And if he is fed more of these types of aspiring heavyweights there’s no reason to think he won’t add at least a couple more knockouts to his résumé.

Even if, hypothetically, Lewis’s most recent win was the last time he gets a KO or TKO in the UFC, he will hold his record and maintain his spot at No. 1 for a while.

The No. 2 fighter with 13 career knockout wins is Matt Brown, who recently announced his retirement from competition.

Below Brown are stars Dustin Poirier and Max Holloway, who are tied with the retired Anderson Silva, the late Anthony Johnson and Thiago Santos, who’s at the end of his career in the PFL, for third all-time with 11 knockout wins.

Holloway, the current “BMF” of the UFC, is only 32 years old despite all his experience and still fighting at an elite level. He is coming off a Knockout of the Year candidate against Justin Gaethje in April at UFC 300, while Poirier, 35, added to his KO totals at the PPV prior with his vicious stoppage of Benoit Saint Denis at UFC 299 in March.

Poirier’s next bout will be for the undisputed lightweight title at UFC 302 against Islam Makhachev. Poirier, a former interim titleholder at 155 pounds, is a huge betting underdog heading into the June 1 event. The current champion is 25-1 in mixed martial arts and has won 13 in a row since being knocked out by Adriano Martins in 2015 in his second UFC appearance.

There’s no guarantee Poirier fights four more times in the UFC, let alone gets another four KO/TKO wins to tie Lewis’ current mark.

Holloway, between his age and the fact he’s coming off back-to-back highlight-reel knockouts over notoriously durable opponents – before beating Gaethje he put away the Korean Zombie brutally with a right hand – could be the leading contender at the moment to one day catch Lewis, but he is by no means the only potential contender. Also, keep in mind Holloway had gone the distance in eight consecutive bouts prior to his current two-fight KO streak. 

Former heavyweight champion and a past opponent of Lewis, Francis Ngannou, racked up 10 KO wins in the UFC between 2015 and 2021 before leaving the organization, which means Lewis, Holloway and Poirier are the only active fighters with double-digit KO/TKO wins in the UFC.  

Fellow former heavyweight champs Stipe Miocic and Andrei Arlovski are tied with nine and still technically active but neither has added to their respective totals in quite a while with Miocic last finishing an opponent in 2019 and Arlovski way back in 2015.

Beneath those two legends, are two potential challengers in the back half of their careers.

Live-by-the-sword, die-by-the-sword lightweight Drew Dober has nine and is one of those fighters like Brown and Lewis who may never reach the heights of being a champion but will always be a knockout threat whose first priority is landing a KO shot of his own.

Same goes for fan favourite featherweight Edson Barboza, who headlines a UFC Fight Night event at the Apex later this week. Barboza can become the fourth active fighter to earn double-digit KOs if he becomes the first fighter to defeat Lerone Murphy.

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Barboza and Dober are one spot ahead of a group of fighters tied with eight KO/TKOs, including Conor McGregor, who returns at UFC 303 later this year, plus Lewis’ heavyweight contemporaries Curtis Blaydes and Jairzinho Rozenstruik.

Lewis sent Blaydes to the shadow realm, as the youths say, when they met three years ago but somehow Lewis and Rozenstruik have not yet crossed paths. In terms of who has the heaviest hands in the entire UFC, Lewis and Rozenstruik are both firmly on the short list of contenders.

Rozenstruik is 8-5 in the UFC and all his wins have been via strikes inside the distance. It seems like it should be only a matter of time before these two power punchers face each other, but until that actually happens, it wouldn’t be entirely shocking to see both fighters continue putting away the rising contenders placed in front of them. Rozenstruik is three years younger than Lewis which leaves him some room to catch up. Granted, he’ll have to keep winning at a relatively high level to warrant his spot on the roster long-term. The 36-year-old hasn’t strung together consecutive wins since beginning his UFC career 4-0.

Sticking at heavyweight, Tom Aspinall is 31 which is relatively young for the weight class and already has five KO/TKO wins in eight UFC appearances. As fight fans saw at UFC 295 when he traded with Sergei Pavlovich, the current interim champ can come out on top in a brawl where both fighters’ chins get tested. Keeping gold around his waist is a more pressing priority than this Lewis record is, although Aspinall will naturally begin to close the gap if he keeps extending his winning streak and his striking continues improving each time he competes.

Aspinall (2:10) and Pavlovich (2:13) still hold the shortest average fight times among active fighters and the power to put anyone to sleep.

Joaquin Buckley was also victorious this past Saturday. He’s only 30, has six total KO/TKO wins to his name and is on a nice streak at welterweight right now.

The lightweight-heavyweight division packs plenty of punching power and one of the rising stars at 205 pounds showed off his mean left hook in Saturday’s bout that preceded both Buckley’s and Lewis’s wins. 

Carlos Ulberg has four knockouts in his past five fights, and if he keeps getting favourable matchups, he will simultaneously keep rising up the LHW rankings and up the all-time KO wins list. He’s 33 but only has 11 MMA bouts and one loss to his name. Khalil Rountree Jr. has been rounding into former in this division, too; he’s the active leader in the weight class with seven KO/TKO wins, and he’s preparing for a matchup with fellow knockout artist Jamahal Hill at UFC 303, where it’s likely someone gets put out.

Middleweight has been producing some beasts lately and Brazil’s Gregory Rodrigues has been showing off his finishing prowess since 2021. The 32-year-old rising contender at 185 pounds is 6-2 in the UFC with his five most recent wins coming by KO/TKO. In fact, Rodrigues is already tied with former champ Israel Adesanya for most KO wins among active middleweights.

Men’s bantamweight champ Sean O’Malley already has six to his name, which is tied with Rob Font and Marlon Vera for most among active bantamweights. Song Yadong has shown his KO power on five occasions thus far in his young career and the Chinese fighter is only 26.

Elite knockout artists are rarer within the women’s divisions so it’s unlikely we see a fighter from those weight classes rise up the knockout list at a rapid rate. Former two-weight champ Amanda Nunes has a record seven KO/TKO wins in the UFC and will only add to those totals if she comes out of retirement. Former strawweight champ Jessica Andrade is 32 with six total KO/TKO wins in the UFC. She has a realistic shot at passing Nunes on the female side but if she doubles her current total she’d still be behind Brown.

So much of accumulating knockout wins depends on style matchups and the various levels of difficulty at which a fighter competes, but all this above is to highlight what an accomplishment is it for Lewis to have amassed the totals he has so far, and how difficult it will be for any fighter to catch up to the popular heavyweight star anytime soon.

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