I'd say Dos Santos, Kongo and Schaub are all better than Cain and Carwin in the stand-up. Dos Santos is self-explanatory. Great hands and KO power. Kongo is a great kickboxer. I'm surprised he never tried K-1. Though he did get dropped by Frank Mir (rofl) once. Shit happens. And Brendan Schaub is a stud. 6'4", 240 pounds, athletic (former NFL player), great hands (used to be a Golden Gloves boxing champ too) and has KO power too. I probably wouldn't put Roy Nelson above Cain. Nelson is a brawler with great KO power (and he's got Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu skills and he's deceptively athletic for an obese mofo. The guy is a stud. I just don't see him having the potential that Dos Santos and Schaub do). His technical proficiency as a striker leaves more to be desired.
Frank Mir's stand-up sucks so I'm not even gonna go there. He dropped Kongo once (that doesn't mean he's better at stand up than Kongo. Shit happens) and an over-the-hill Big Nog (Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira). And he knocked out a washed up Mirko Cro Cop. And when Frank Mir is on the defensive striking-wise, he clearly sucks. Frank Mir doesn't like getting beat up. That all said, didn't GSP tap to strikes once? Some fighters, even elite level fighters, don't have that fighter mentality. They don't like getting hit.
If we look at top level heavyweight strikers outside the UFC, Alistair Overeem is a fucking beast (he's a K-1 Grand Prix regular too) but his chin isn't the best. Andrei Arlovski has great hands and KO power but he's got poor striking defense and has a glass jaw. And Fedor can hit like a truck but he's more of a brawler stand-up wise (great ground n pound though. Watch Fedor vs. Big Nog 1 in PRIDE FC 25) and he's not exactly known a a KO artist (aside from what he did to Andrei Arlovski). His bread and butter is submissions and ground n pound. But he's very capable of getting knock downs on the feet.
