There has always been speculation over who lands the hardest strikes— pro boxers or MMA fighters? UFC Middleweight Champion Luke Rockhold recently joined UFC legend Antonio ‘Big Nog’ Nogueira to be put to the test against one of England’s most respected pro boxers, George Groves, and other elite athletes to find out who really strikes the hardest. They were joined by football’s strongest man, Adebayo Akinfenwa, and England’s rugby ace, Nick Easter, as they participated in EA Sports’ #FinishtheFight challenge.
Each athlete was evaluated and compared in terms of power and speed as they took turns throwing their hardest strikes at the ‘StrikeMate’ target. It was Rockhold who would top the charts with a scintillating right hand and a record-breaking score of 99,637.
Former European, British and Commonwealth super-middleweight champion, George Groves, came in second with a score of 70,770, while Nick Easter and ‘The Beast’ Akinfenwa came in just short of that with impressive scores of 66,630 and 66,139 respectively. The retired ‘Big Nog’ clocked in at a still impressive score of 65,112.
Strike Research Chairman, Kevin Franklin, was astounded by the results— in particular, Rockhold’s record-breaking power score.
“Luke’s score is the biggest straight punch we have ever recorded. We examined his punches and the staggering scores come as a result of fantastic technique and lightning speed twinned with near perfect accuracy and single pointed focus on impact.
“Heavyweight boxers tend to be punching at around 70,000 so a score of nearly 100,000 is nothing short of phenomenal.
“Great technique comes from transferring the centre of gravity from the back foot to the front foot at the point of impact. The timing has to be within 50 millionths of a second for the two peaks (peak power and kinetic energy) to achieve maximum effect.
Basically, a fast heavy fighter will always be the most powerful and small lighter fighters can only compensate with extraordinary technique. The performance of all the athletes, in this case, was exceptional.
Rockhold, Nogueira, Groves, Easter and Akinfenwa took on EA Sports’ #FinishtheFight challenge to mark the launch of EA Sports UFC 2, which is currently available for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
