5 intimidating UFC fighters no one wanted to face

#2. Former UFC lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov

Given the UFC lightweight king's unfortunate slate of injuries, the argument can be made that the only man who can stop Khabib is Khabib himself. The sambo maestro’s relentless, lightning quick takedowns were both terrifying and near impossible to deal with.

For the many fighters unlucky enough to be grounded by the Dagestani, there were suddenly two things to worry about. The first was what kind of horrible submission hold ‘The Eagle’ might go for. The second was Nurmagomedov’s penchant for punching the faces of his grounded opponents into mush.

With a marathon runner’s cardio and immense pound-for-pound strength, the supremely-skilled Nurmagomedov was simply on another level. His four-round UFC 229 dissection of Conor McGregor remains the most bought pay-per-view in UFC history.

His pillar to post dominance of the lightweight division is already the stuff of MMA legend. At 29-0, Nurmagomedov bowed at the peak of his powers.

#1. Former UFC light heavyweight fighter Anthony Johnson

One of the hardest hitters the UFC has ever seen, Anthony ‘Rumble’ Johnson’s skull-cracking power was enough to have everyone running. Over the course of his two tenures in the UFC, Johnson racked up a whopping 11 TKO/KO victories. During his time in the UFC’s light heavyweight division, Johnson puts a who’s who of LHW contenders to sleep.

Despite his explosive, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it knockout shots, Johnson simply couldn’t overcome Daniel Cormier. DC managed to finish Johnson not once, but twice at UFC 187 and UFC 210 respectively. Cormier is the only man to have beaten Johnson in the past nine years.

The orthodox stance brawler can now be seen in Bellator, where he recently knocked out José Augusto.