A knee to the head is possibly the most dangerous strike in combat sports. It was a knee to the head that broke Evangelista Santos’ skull in a fight against Michael Page after all.
A flying knee can also be one of the most difficult strikes to land however. It has to be perfectly timed to create maximum impact, and if you miss you might have jumped right into a range that your opponent is all too comfortable in. For this reason, going for a flying knee is a little like swinging for the fences in baseball; there’s a good chance you will strikeout, but if you manage to make contact your opponent is in trouble.
For this article we have taken a look at the top flying knee KOs in kickboxing and MMA. There have been quite a few outstanding knockouts from flying knees over the years, and as such a few had to be omitted from this list. Preference has been given to knockouts that occurred on a large show or in an important fight.
Here are the top 7 flying knee knockouts of all-time
8. Jose Aldo vs. Cub Swanson WEC 41
Current interim UFC featherweight champion, who may or may not be retired, didn’t take long to finish off Cub Swanson back in 2008. All of 9 seconds it took for him to land a flying knee and be done with him.
This was still almost 2 years before the UFC would create smaller weight classes, so the 145lbs division in WEC was where the top smaller guys were competing at the time. In 2009 the division’s former top dog, Urijah Faber, had just lost the belt to Mike Brown and Aldo and Swanson were two top-ranked contenders.
After defeating Swanson in this title-eliminator fight, Aldo would defeat Mike Brown for the title, then successfully defend it twice before being named the inaugraual UFC featherweight champion.
