Vitor Belfort leads UFC with 11 first-round knockouts

Vitor Belfort holds the UFC record for first-round knockouts, with the Brazilian veteran having finished 11 opponents inside the opening frame across his storied career in the promotion.

Belfort, nicknamed "The Phenom," carries a professional record of 26-14-0 and competed at six feet tall with a 74-inch reach. Now 49, the Brazilian southpaw fought out of Kill Cliff FC and built his legacy on explosive early aggression, though his career-long significant strike output settled at 1.59 per minute with a 46 percent accuracy rate — numbers that reflect how often his fights ended before accumulating meaningful volume.

Anthony Johnson sits second on the all-time list with nine first-round knockouts, while Poland's Michal Oleksiejczuk — known as "Hussar" — occupies third place with eight. The 31-year-old southpaw out of Akademia Sportow Walki Wilanow carries a 22-10-0 record and ranks among the UFC's most active strikers, landing 5.85 significant strikes per minute at 53 percent accuracy.

Sergey Pavlovich, Francis Ngannou, Andrei Arlovski, Anderson Silva, and Derrick Lewis each round out the group with seven first-round knockouts apiece. Also in that seven-knockout tier is former heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez, who compiled a 14-3-0 record fighting out of American Kickboxing Academy. The six-foot-one Californian possessed a 77-inch reach and was as dangerous on the feet as on the mat, averaging 5.13 takedowns per 15 minutes alongside a 57 percent striking accuracy mark.

Why it matters

• Belfort's 11 first-round finishes represent a benchmark no UFC fighter has matched, underscoring his historical place as one of the promotion's most lethal early starters.
• Oleksiejczuk's presence at eight knockouts, still active at 31, means the record is within reach for a current fighter.
• The list cuts across multiple eras and weight classes, spanning heavyweights, light heavyweights, and middleweights.