It’s back!
Over the next few days, Bloody Elbow is going to ask for your opinion on some of the best things that have happened in the MMA world over the course of 2018. There will be a total of eight different categories you’ll be asked to vote on. For the sake of simplicity we’re going to stick with high-level and relevant MMA stuff in these posts. While I’m sure there was a ludicrous knockout in an unscheduled MMA event at The Lumberyard strip club in Des Moines, or an insane pancreas lock submission on an obscure ZST! card in Japan, let’s just stick to stuff a lot of us have seen, okay? (If that spiel looked familiar, it’s because I’ve used the same one for eight years in a row. Originality? What originality?)
It’s pretty simple. I’ll post 5-10 options in a category, you vote for what you think was the best. If you think I left something really important off my list, post it in the comments and we can add it to the poll if it’s deemed worthy. I can almost guarantee you won’t like all my suggestions, but narrowing down these lists is tough.
Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s get onto the seventh poll - the best fighter of 2018. Many combatants had the best years of their career in 2018, and a select few won titles as well. This is always a tough category to narrow down nominees from, but here’s what I came up with.
Before that though, if you haven’t yet, go back and vote on the first two categories - Best Submission, Biggest Robbery, Biggest Upset, Newcomer of the Year, and Event of the Year.
Israel Adesanya - The clear breakout fighter of 2018. Four wins, three performance bonuses, already headlining cards, and earned a shot at Anderson Silva at UFC 235.
Amanda Nunes - She defended her bantamweight title with a methodical decimation of Raquel Pennington. Then she stepped up to featherweight and knocked out the mighty Cris Cyborg inside a minute to become a double champ. Pretty impressive.
Magomed Magomedkerimov - Five straight wins in 2018 in PFL, including an upset win over Ray Cooper in the welterweight finals to win a million dollars.
Valentina Shevchenko - Two fights. Two wins, including one over Joanna Jedrzejczyk to claim the vacant women’s flyweight title.
Dustin Poirier - He only fought twice, but what glorious fights they were. Poirier stopped both Justin Gaethje and Eddie Alvarez in FOTY candidates to put himself in the mix at lightweight. He was supposed to fight Nate Diaz too, but an injury quashed that.
Daniel Cormier - The champ champ started the year by taking out Volkan Oezdemir in a 205-pound title defense. Then he knocked out Stipe Miocic to win the heavyweight title. Finally, he handled Derrick Lewis to defend the HW title. Not bad for a 39-year-old.
Kyoji Horiguchi - Three wins in RIZIN, including a nine-second KO of Ian McCall and a huge third-round submission win over Bellator champ Darrion Caldwell. Why did the UFC let him go again?
Khabib Nurmagomedov - He won the lightweight title by beating Al Iaquinta. Then he stopped Conor McGregor on the biggest card in UFC history. He’s still in hot water for the commission, but you can’t deny the work he’s done in the cage.
Derrick Lewis - Three straight wins, including one of the comebacks of the year, got him a short-notice heavyweight title shot. He lost that to Cormier, but it was still a banner year for The Black Beast.
Kamaru Usman - Three wins, two that went the full five rounds. The most recent coming over perennial contender Rafael dos Anjos. Earned himself a welterweight title shot.