2017's best of MMA: The 10 most destructive knockouts

As the year in cage fighting reaches its end, theScore's Themistoklis Alexis looks back at a time of chaos, carnage, and lots of people getting clobbered in the face.

2017's best of MMA:

• The most mind-boggling submissions
• The best fights
• Fighter of the year

In the first of our four-part series, we highlight 10 of the best jaw-droppers from the past 12 months:

Honorable Mention: Josh Emmett def. Ricardo Lamas (UFC on FOX 26, Dec. 16)

They say the left hook is the most dangerous punch in combat sports. Emmett proved the old adage right in the biggest fight of his life.

Facing a top-five fixture in Lamas on less than three weeks' notice, the comparatively unheralded Emmett proved he was no stepping stone, catching Lamas flush on the button with a counter left that sent him to the shadow realm within one round.

10. Gaston Bolanos def. Rick Gutierrez (Bellator 189, Dec. 1)

Contrary to his moniker, Bolanos is much better at inducing dreams than trampling them.

As Gutierrez threw a jab with his right hand low, he left his chin ripe for obliteration, and "The Dreamkiller" promptly obliged him with a blistering, consciousness-eradicating spinning back elbow just over a minute into their featherweight tilt.

9. Edson Barboza def. Beneil Dariush (UFC Fight Night 106, March 11)

For a round-and-a-half, Dariush did everything right.

He neutralized Barboza's deadly kicks with non-stop pressure and consistently beat him to the punch, but once his gas tank began cooking up other ideas and he'd broken out the jab-fake shot combo once too often, his dome was introduced to a perfectly timed flying knee from Barboza that all but knocked him into the following week.

8. Marc Diakiese def. Teemu Packalen (UFC Fight Night 107, March 18)

Despite its best efforts, Packalen's body had to give in once Diakiese found the off switch.

It took the Brit just 30 seconds to connect a frighteningly fast, laser-sighted right hand to Packalen's noggin, and while his soul hightailed it out of the cage, what remained of the Fin needed a little while longer to properly succumb to the blow and resign itself to the canvas.

7. Paul Daley def. Brennan Ward (Bellator 170, Jan. 21)

If 2017 was the Year of the Knee, it's because Daley made it so.

The British knockout artist kicked the calendar year off not with one, but two thunderous bangs, stunning Ward with a spinning back elbow before laying waste to him with the first of 2017's litany of fight-ending flying knees.

6. Matt Brown def. Diego Sanchez (UFC Fight Night 120, Nov. 11)

It started with a garden variety kick.

Sanchez was its emissary, and Brown took a beat or two before making him rue the strike, backing him against the fence with his foe's errant leg in his clutches, then uncorking an arcing elbow from hell Sanchez had to have seen coming, but couldn't keep from folding him like a lawn chair that's seen way too much action.

If Brown doesn't renege on his prefight retirement talks, he'll have gone out with the most Brown-esque swan song.

5. Marlon Moraes def. Aljamain Sterling (UFC Fight Night 123, Dec. 9)

What was intended as a head kick finished as a knee, but it put Sterling's lights out nonetheless.

Moraes caught Sterling ducking on a takedown attempt with a perfectly timed strike, leaving the Long Island native alarmingly stiff on the canvas for his first stoppage victory in three walks to the Octagon.

4. Mike Perry def. Jake Ellenberger (UFC Fight Night 108, April 22)

What Perry lacked in technique, he made up for in raw power, and Ellenberger caught the brunt of it.

The seasoned, yet brittle Ellenberger wisely did his damnedest to pick Perry apart in Round 1, but an ill-advised clinch marked the beginning of the end, as Perry leveled him with a jaw-dropping hellbow off the break for the eerie KO just over a minute into the second.

3. Soufian Haj Haddou def. Marcel Jedidi (German MMA Championship 13, Dec. 16)

There's a reason fighters are told to protect themselves at all times - even when in the much maligned "butt scoot" position.

While most would have waited for the referee to intervene and summon their cheeky opponent back to the feet, Haj Haddou went airborne, adjusted his body in flight and bounced Jedidi's dome off the canvas with what he's since dubbed a "meteorite punch."

2. Tywan Claxton def. Jonny Bonilla-Bowman (Bellator 186, Nov. 3)

Those aiming to emphatically announce themselves in the cage might want to take a cue or two from "Speedy" Claxton.

The 25-year-old debutant needed south of 90 seconds to put himself on the proverbial radar in his maiden voyage as a pro fighter, literally rubbing his foe's face into the soaring knee he unleashed from halfway across the canvas.

1. Francis Ngannou def. Alistair Overeem (UFC 218, Dec. 2)

Ngannou had promised Overeem he'd put him to sleep, and he delivered.

Instead of riding his rangy kickboxing to take the comparatively green Ngannou into deep waters and potentially derail his hype train, Overeem recklessly charged in with a looping left hand, one "The Predator" countered with the uppercut heard 'round the world that left Overeem stiff as a statue just 1:42 into the toughest test of his career.