There are some MMA fighters who are known for their efficiency, others for their technical skills, but there is a group who cause fear to their opponents both inside and outside the octagon.
They are there not only with the goal of victory. They want to physically punish their opponent and they show it clearly, before and during the fight. The American website Bleacher Report thought about this and put together a list with the 25 most dangerous MMA fighters in history .
As could not be otherwise, the Brazilian Wanderlei Silva topped the list, he who is called "The Axe Murderer" abroad, as well as the famous nickname Mad Dog. Our Brazilian fighter Cris Cyborg took the 13th position, while Anderson Silva came in 14th.
As you can see in the list, not always the most efficient have conquered the first places. But, for sure, the most cruel ones mark their presence. And you, do you think some of them are missing here?
1º Wanderlei Silva
The master of pride uses kicks, punches and anything else that can massacre his opponent and, if he is on a good day, win a fight, too. No one was more intense, and no one else spread fear like The Axe Murderer.
2nd Gilbert Yvel
Quite possibly, the fighter who comes closest to actually being capable of anything inside the cage. On the card, 32 KO's out of 38 total wins. Gilbert Yvel is so violent that he has even knocked out the referee.
3rd Gerard Gordeau
The dirtiest fighter in MMA. Called The Cleaner, he seems to be the guy called only when they need to get rid of the identifying features of a dead body. At UFC 1, he literally kicked the teeth of sumo wrestler Teila Tuli. Later, he made Yuki Nakai blind in one eye. In the end, he lost the fight, though.
4th Frank Mir
He broke Tim Sylvia's forearm and Minotauro's humerus, he made Brock Lesnar look like a mere mortal.
5º Alistair Overeem
The biggest, strongest, and, structurally significant heavyweight of our time may be the scariest specimen never to enter a cage.He is a bully who loves the smell of fear that, once he detects it, he will use every available extremity to dig it out of his body.He had two of his 36 victories by stalling.Of the 34 victories, 11 involved knees.
6º Mirko "Cro Cop
Mirko "Cro Cop" Filipovic is a very intelligent and decent person. He doesn't fight with the air of a loose animal. The way he built heaps of human rubble, even when the other guy knew it was coming, is impressive. It was his line "Right leg, hospital; left leg, graveyard." Everyone just shook their heads. It wasn't arrogant or idiotic.
7th Tank Abbott
David "Tank" Abbott speaks for himself, he likes to hurt people, do you doubt it?
8th Ken Shamrock
They don't call you "the most dangerous man in the world" because you're a devil with the ladies. In his prime, Ken Shamrock fought like a trophy hunter, and assembled a rosary of famous limbs on his mantelpiece. The two most memorable images from his MMA career are probably the knee lock on Bas Rutten (see video) and his fight with Don Frye at Pride, in which Frye refused to submit tosome nasty hooks and finally won the fight, but suffered long-term damage as a result.
9 Mikhail Ilyukhin
Mikhail Ilyukhin is not well known today, but he might have been the most dangerous submission finisher of the mid-90's. His numbers-36-18-1 as a pro, 33 submission wins-are eye-opening. But the real decisive argument was the way in which he accumulated submissions. Ilyukhin was a master of the ankle and Achilles locks, which easily causedinjuries if the quit didn't come.
But that's really not the worst of it. Twice in his career, Ilyukhin won with a maneuver that isn't allowed these days, but was perfectly legal in the Old West of 1990s MMA. He lived up to the nickname "chin in the eye" to defeat the great Igor Vovchanchyn, a very dangerous fighter. Check out the video here and fast forward to 8m20 to see the old "chin in the eye" in action. It looks painful.
10º Rousimar Toquinho Palhares
11º Jon Hess
Jon Hess' professional MMA career lasted one minute and 35 seconds. But that's all it took to establish him as one of the dirtiest and most dangerous fighters ever. His win over Andy Anderson at UFC 5 was a dreadful display. He left technique aside and did whatever it took to win a fight, like handing out blows, disjointed kicks, low blows to the bag and evenFortunately, in Hess' second and final fight, a young man by the name of Vitor Belfort escorted out of the octagon.
12th Melvin Manhoef
Melvin Manhoef may be the most knockout fanatic fighter in MMA. The guy has a 27-9-1 MMA record, with 25 wins by knockout or technical knockout. That's 93% of his wins by striking stoppage. That's a very high percentage.
13 Cristiane "Cyborg" Santos
She is considered the female version of Wanderlei Silva in MMA. She has eight of her 10 wins by KO, running over anyone who passes in front of her. When it comes to fighting, no other woman can match the physical charisma and intimidation of Cristiane "Cyborg" Santos, especially when she is stalking her prey.
14 Anderson Silva
15th Allan Goes
Allan Goes was one of the first disciples to spread jiu-jitsu in North America. Interestingly, however, he may have made the biggest impact on what is now known as ground and pound. During a scuffle with Frank Shamrock, Goes broke an unwritten rule of engagement when he began striking his grounded opponent. He was dirty at the time, and it showed just how dangerous he was.He didn't care about any unwritten rules. The battle ended in a draw. It's not the most famous fight in the world, but the dirty trick helped change the rules for the modern game. If you've never seen the fight before, check it out!
16th Shinya Aoki
21 of Shinya Aoki's 32 victories have come by completion. Perhaps most frighteningly, however, three have come by "technical submission," meaning that someone has broken a bone or been choked unconscious.
17 Chuck Liddell
Anyone who has followed the sport for a while has heard of Chuck Liddell. He liked to get out there and get people out of the octagon. That was his main specialty.
18th Bob Schrijber
19th Renato "Babalu" Sobral
Not only does Renato "Babalu" Sobral have a history of dangerous behavior in the cage, he also perpetually uses an expression that says: (1) I am trying to put a hole in your retinas and (2) I am done with some kind of bender.
20th Shane Carwin
If you could line up every MMA fighter at their peak in all of history, it is likely that Shane Carwin would come out as the hardest hitter in the group.
21º Jose Aldo
With kicks alone, Jose Aldo made Urijah Faber walk on crutches. But his reign of terror doesn't stop there. His great attack from all points standing opens wounds, no matter where the opponent is.
22º Ronda Rousey
"Hi, I'm Ronda Rousey, okay, here's what I'm going to do, I'm going to grab you, throw you under the mat, and put you in an arm wrench, you can tap three times and finish this or watch an instructional video for the orthopedic residents."
23rd Fedor Emelianenko
Veteran Josh Barnett admits regarding strategy to beat Fedor Emelianenko "You could only knock these guys out if you broke on top and managed to get away with a big beating to the face"
24th Jon Jones
Jon Jones is not dangerous in the sense that he looks at his opponents. But he can attack you physically in many ways, and anywhere. You need to get away from his elbows, which are more like close calls. Remember when Jones broke Brandon Vera's face, and it got so ugly that Vera couldn't get on a plane to go home after the fight? That was incredible.
25th Brock Lesnar
You may not like wrestling, but you have to admit: when the gods dispatched Brock Lesnar to earth in search of plundering souls with his hammer fists, they unleashed one of the most dangerous deadly weapons.
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