MMA Fighting - 2024 Year-End MMA Awards Spectacular | Knockout of the Year, Submission, Fighter, Rookie, More

Episode Date: December 25, 2024

Join the MMA Fighting staff as we look back at 2024, celebrating the biggest highs, breakout stars, and most unbelievable moments from one of the UFC and MMA's craziest years.  Follow Mike Heck: @m_heckjr Follow Jed Meshew: @JedKMeshew Follow Alexander K. Lee: @AlexanderKLee Follow E. Casey Leydon: @ekc Subscribe to MMA Fighting Check out our full video catalog Like MMA Fighting on Facebook Follow on Twitter Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Okay, only 10 more presents to wrap. You're almost at the finish line. But first? There, the last one. Enjoy a Coca-Cola for a pause that refreshes. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. Hello there, ladies and gentlemen. Wow, welcome to the MMA Fighting 24 award show

as we celebrate the best of the best in the world of mixed martial arts for the year that was. My name is Mike Heck. Thank you for joining us, and I get to tell you as far as the actual awards and these categories go, this is a pretty exciting year.

A lot of people won big, a lot of people lost big, and got in the trenches, doing the darn thing, in the cage or in the ring, and there were a plethora of memorable moments that took place in our sport

in 2024. And today, we will reveal the nominees and the winners for the M.A. Fighting Fighter of the Year, knockout of the year, submission of the year as well as the fight of the year. So stay tuned for that. But like I said earlier,

2024 was an absolutely wild year. We got the saga that was the build to UFC 300 to what that event ended up becoming to what it will be remembered as for the rest of MMA history. 24 was also the year of Poiton, the MVP of the UFC saving the day time and time again, delivering knockout after knockout. We had Connor McGregor's return schedule. been taken away. We had the return of Pamsat Shimaeif, the return of John Jones, who finally fought Steppe Mietchich. We saw the UFC create something special at Sphere in September. We saw the UFC break gate

records around North America with some pretty awful cards on paper. The emergence of teams like fighting nerds, the return to MMA of Francis and Gano in the Professional Fighters League, the PFL's first year post-Belitor merger, leaving a lot to be designed. and much more. Plus, Tachi Palace still has not gotten their UFC event. Maybe that'll change in 2025, but folks, it's time to give away some hardware. We will run down the nominees for the awards. We will reveal the winner.

And then I will be joined by a couple of my terrific colleagues over at MAAfighting.com to discuss how we got to where we got. So without further ado, let's give away our first award. And we're not messing around, ladies and gentlemen. We will begin with the 2024 knockout of the year. Take a look. MMA Fighting's 24

Knockout of the Year. Number five. Alex Pajeda over Jamal Hill. UFC 300. Number four. Shara Bullet over Armin Petrosian.

UFC 308. Number three. Ilya Tupuria versus Max Holloway, UFC 308. Number two, Elia Tupuria over Alexander Volcanovsky, UFC 298.

And MMA Fighting's number one knockout of the year, Max Holloway, over Justin Gaichie, UFC 300. All right, everybody, there you go. Max Holloway, MMA Fighting's 2024 knockout of the year winner, and it was unanimous. on our voting panel had this knockout as the top KO of 2024.

And I don't think anybody's really surprised by this, including the gentleman joining me to discuss the fallout of these awards. Of course, the esteemed Jed Bishue, Alexander Kay Lee, and E Casey Leiden, does he have sleeves on? No, of course not. The Casey we all know and love. And Jed, let's begin with you, because there are moments in this sport that stick with us forever.

and there are moments that define a year in this crazy sport. So when someone mentions the UFC in 2024, there's a lot of things that are going to pop into my mind. I don't think anything's topping Max Holloway knocking out Justin Gage in the final seconds of their fight at UFC 300. Why was this such an easy choice for you? We all knew in April that this was the KO of the year because this is very possibly like the greatest knockout in UFC history.

There are other contenders, right? And there is an argument to be made that this isn't the best COO this year. I think it's a silly argument, but there is a not unreasonable argument to make, in part because it's subjective. And because while I don't agree with the somewhat insane assertion that like, this is just a punch, this is not like the most meaningful COO, right? Like this wasn't the changing up the guard. this was not as some of these other knockouts on our list are like, oh, here is an all-time great going down for the first time ever.

Here is a guy who's never been knocked out getting finished. It's not those. This is a dude getting knocked out, but context rules all of these things, right? Like at the end of the day, Michael Jordan's jump shot to win the game is just a jumper, but the fact that it comes with three seconds left and the hand push off was to push off? I don't know. Ice the ball game. Ice the career.

Like this context matters. And we have here with Max Hollow and Justin Gachie, this is iconic. There has never been a more iconic knockout than this. There are others that are in the same tier, the same vaunted stature. But this is a knockout. You can tell your grandkids, oh, I was there for the phantom punch against Sunny Liston. Oh, I was there when Maxx. Holloway pointed at the ground and iced Justin Gagchi in the not really the main event,

but the people's main event after one of the best fights of the year on the biggest event of all time in mixed martial arts history. Like this is so iconic that any argument against it, while you can make them, are pretty unreasonable. Like it's pretty ridiculous to stand on ceremony and be like, nope, that's not the knockout we're going to talk about 20 years from now. Like this is the knockout of the year in just about every narrative sense and pretty much every other sense too.

A.K., not only was the knockout memorable, but everybody who watched it reacted the exact same way. Everybody got out of their seats. Everybody screamed. I remember being in Las Vegas doing the watch party with Connor Burke's and just losing our minds when this knockout happened. And as Jed said, and I'm sure you can attest to this, this one was. was going to be impossible to beat after you saw it, was it not?

First off, a big shout out to Pre and Perry for my clothing today. This is an indigenous-based clothing company, so I want to shout them out, beautiful stuff, guys. Go order from them pre-and-parry. This is why... No free ads, AK. Oh, you're right. We will give away free ads here. Casey, cut that.

That won't make it in. This knockout is... It's so corny. It's so cliche to say it. But like, this is why we watch combat sports, man. It's like, I think anyone who's listened to us before, I harp all the time, you know, belts or props and rankings are silly. I love rankings.

We make rankings for me fighting are silly. Like, you know, all the politics, all the call-outs like that. Like, I know we get exhausted by sometimes fans get exhausted by it. Nothing beats fight night. Nothing beats, you know, finally just came to sit down and watch people do this. their thing and create moments. And like Jed was kind of saying, like, this wasn't like the most meaningful knockout ever. It was at the end of a fight that Max Hollow was already winning.

It was for the BMF title, which again, your mileage may vary on how much weight you put on this thing. But it is a cool little trinket. And yes, it was a meeting between, you know, two probably the greatest action fighters of all time. But other than, other than that, as if that's nothing, you know, there's no, it didn't feel like there was a lot on the line, though now we now realize that that that. vaulted max back into another featherweight talus shot.

But just in isolation, just when you were watching, I feel like you forgot everything else that was happening, right? That's not just the magic of combat force. That's a magical force. That's why we escape into this world. We just don't want to think about, you know, what trials and tribulations we're facing in our personal and professional lives and all that. And all the nitty-gritty of the UFC, you know, we complain about the UFC all the time.

But this promotion, when they can put two guys like this in there and create these moments and just let them cook. Like you just let them cook. You just let them put on a show. You let it build up to this moment. And this is a moment that had been building it for years, not just because of their reputations, but because we had seen Max invented the point down, right? He invented the end of fight point down. And when he first did it against Ricardo Lomas, it was super cool. It didn't end into like a knockout.

And again, another situation, a fight that Max was already winning. But we loved it. You know, we loved it. And then so that was years before this. And then, you know, other people have done and imitated. It's never really led to this, you know, the best possible thing that could happen, which is what happened at your Cth 100, where, yes, two guys go in, really throw down. Some guy gets floored.

It was magical, man. And as we can, you know, we'll talk about some other fights on the list. Yes, that were more significant, that were more, you know, had more historical, we'll have more, maybe more historical, not more historical, not more hostile way, just in a different way, in a more substantial way. But I just don't see how anyone could have watched this and been like, oh, there's going to, there's, that wasn't the best kill of the year up to that point. And that there will somehow, somehow someone will top this care.

We knew. I think in our thread on Slack, we said, shut it down. Like, shut it down. That's it. This is the best K.O. The best moment. Maybe the probably the best moment of Max Holloway's career, which is crazy because the guys had, again, championship wins and other numerous, numerous highlights.

But it was, it was really, really, really magical. And that's just not a word I feel like we get to use enough these days. when we're talking about M.A. at the highest level. But there's no other thing to call this. Such a worthy winner of the knockout of the year. And I think for a lot of people, it'll be their favorite knockout of their entire lives until someone finds a way to top it,

which would be tough. I love a Max talks about this fight too because he's like, I gave Gaichi one more chance and he would have given me that same opportunity, which is just so fun to hear a guy like that talk about it. Casey, what were you doing? Where are you sitting?

Who are you with? when this knockout occurred a UFC 300. And that's why this knockout is so freaking legendary and obviously the best knockout the year, maybe the best knockout ever is because it is the fact that you ask that question, it is a type of knockout that you go, where were you when you saw this knockout? And I can't think of really very many things like that in the sport where you go, where were you? I was sitting at home.

I had six teammates over. So everyone in there is a professional fighter. amateur fighter and this is the first time I've ever actually recorded and yet even posted a reaction video but you just had that feeling like something something crazy is going to happen in this fight I shot the video and like oh my god like check out my Instagram I this I posted it I'm just going back in my mind like I went we all went insane I went insane for about 10 seconds just what we just saw I mean I've been working in this sport for 20 almost 20 years years. And the fact that I could see a knockout like that and it still just made me go just

stupid excited and just out of my mind what I just witnessed. I mean, I don't even repeat what everyone else said. We all, we obviously, you know, legendary, you know, legendary power. Just just highlight real and Max Holloway and just the story UFC 300. We've all said that. But just, yeah, this exceeded my just emotional cap I've ever, I think I could ever, achieve in the sport. As a fan, as a media member, everything. It was just incredible. And the violence.

Poor Zhang Wei and Janjohnat. How to follow that. That was just, it's almost impossible to try to follow that. But they did their best. And then we got Alex Perb, booping Jamal Hill, which we may talk about in a second. But Jed, I don't know what's actually more impressive. The Holloway

knockout or Ilya Tuporia being tied for second in this knockout of the year voting. And I say that because he was tied with himself. His knockouts of Max Holloway and Alexander Volcanovsky tied for second. And Jed, you had the Volcanovsky knockout at UFC 298 ranked above the Max Holloway knockout at UFC 308. Why did you vote that way? Yeah. So this was, I love how we started this show, boys, because unanimous, we all agree. Let's laud and praise this wonderful knockout by Max Holloway, give him his flower and his crown of laurels, the BMF title.

And now we confess to this shit, because I got a problem with some of you people. It is ludicrous to me that number two was not a unanimous knockout as well. It is very clearly the only real contender to challenge Max versus Gaiji for knockout of the year is and should be Ilya knocking out Alexander Volcanovsky because it is the most meaningful knockout of the year. It is the knockout that we will replay

for years on end because it represents a changing of the guard, because it represents a significant momentum swing in the sport and in one of the iconic weight classes of the sport because it is the first time Alexander Volcanowski has ever been defeated at this weight class because

up to and prior to getting knocked out, there was beginning, and still some people even make the argument. Volcanovsky is the greatest featherweight of all time, and that argument quieted down a whole lot, as it tends to do once people start to lose, because Iliad Duporia killed him. This was not accumulation of damage that felled him after a number of punches. This was not, oh, he got lucky and caught him. This was a dude who systematically broke Alexander Volcanowski, the second greatest featherweight of all time, and one of the ten greatest fighters of all time, broke him down and ended him with authority. It is aesthetically beautiful to look at. It is technically brilliant what and how he accomplished it, and he did it against one of the ten best dudes ever. there should be no question in anyone's mind

that this is the second best knockout of the year and y'all are crazy if you didn't put it as some people on this very panel did not yes i disagree i was with you jed i was with you jed i was with you i had this is my number two aka and kc both had it the other way so aka i will start with you and then case you could jump in afterwards why did you have hollow the holloway knocko ranked above the volkinovsky knocko my best friend Mike, you did not have this number two.

You sure didn't. I had it ranked higher than... Oh, the Holloway one, yes. The Hollywood one. Yeah, sure. We're talking about firsts. Holloway had never been knocked out before. I mean, that was crazy to see.

We had said in the preview show, I was like, Tepore is probably going to win, but it'll probably buy a decision. None of us thought, we just, in theory, like thought that Max Hollowe could someday be K-O. But we never thought we'd see it. We never thought we'd actually see it. So to see it was just completely surreal.

Now, it wasn't for the title. It was defending the title, which is also a pretty big deal. And so, again, if we're talking about first, yes, being the first person to beat Volcanowski 145, obviously is crazy, considering Volcanowski, how many, like 20, 24, 25 for something fights at Featherweight. And you think about who he fought at Featherweight and to never lose that weight is freaking insane. But I am just as wowed by the Holloway first as I am by the Volcanozvskine first. That makes any sense. It sucks when you do these awards because when you're trying to compare things,

something you have to start like, oh, nitpicking away at one because, and again, I don't agree with what I'm about to say. But there are, if you remember when the Volcanowski knockout happened, there were quite a few people saying like, oh, like his chin is diminished now. His chin was diminished by the Machachev-K-O. And that was a tough act to follow. Like, I do think if I were to pick which one's more impressive, I would pick the Toporio over Volkanowski over the Islam versus Wokovsky. But it's really close.

It's really close. I think if you ask a lot of people, they'll say, oh, I totally put the head. Like, if I'd pick my Volkanowski knockout, sorry, Alex, but that they would go with the Makashem head kick. I mean, that was a crazy moment when it happened. So just based on that, because we had just seen Volcanowski get viciously ca-oed. And it's apples and oranges, different way, I believe Volkanowski had enough time to recover from that knockout,

if there is such a thing as being able to do it. Again, that knockout against Mokachev was so bad. And I think that for me is what notches it down just a little bit. But even just without taking it away, I think just based on their own virtues, as I'm seeing it now, I still can't believe someone put Holloway down with strikes. I can't believe it. Think about the names that Holloway had been there with. I got to run this out.

Obviously, Volcanowski, Josie Aldo twice. And I know Gizaldo wasn't like an insane knockout artist, you know, in the UFC, but we know that that band's resume. Gaithji, Yair, who else was in there? Anthony Pettis, Jeremy Stevens, Olivera, young Oliver. Cups Swanson. Max has been in there with some of the heaviest hitters of the last 15 years, and he never got knocked out. So to see it was just completely blue in mind. So I feel very comfortable putting it over the Volcanovsky one.

And again, the Balkanowski one was incredible. So which is I'm so glad it ended up tied. Like that worked out perfectly. Casey, what say you? Are we going to say, Jed? I was just to say, the only, I have one really big issue with it. The only reason it is in my top five is what AK said, because we have never seen it before, because it is a massively significant and meaningful CO.

That is why it made my top five. I describe a lot less to that. You don't want to totally knock it on those terms, but no chin is uncrackable forever. Eventually you get got. We can still reward him for getting got, but this is not, oh, it can't be done. Everyone can get knocked out eventually,

and Max has been fighting. My big issue with this, it's not like a dope knockout. The only part of it is, cool is that Max has never been knocked out. It is sort of a perfunctory TKO. It's not a TKO because it doesn't get follow-up shots, but Max is it slumped against the cage like he is with Volk. He's not face-planted like Max did to Gagey. Max is still conscious. He's just done. The fight does not need to go on. And so like the aesthetics just are not there for this to be the number two. I think that is a

huge knock on it. And if you don't even have that, like, I think it would be categorically insane to not have Tuporia over Volk in your top five. I think it's reasonable not to have Teporea over Max in your top five, though I would disagree with that because it's not, it is not cool. It is just stunning and impressive, if that makes sense. But I think there's a buildup to the max finish. I like, you're right. It doesn't have that final, that great. visual punch at the end, you know what I mean, that we had with some of the knockouts we just discussed. But I liked the buildup. Like when I saw him, when he saw that he hurt Max, I still don't think he was going to knock him out. I'm not going to lie. I'm like, okay, he rocked him. We've seen, we've seen Max

stung before. But he rocked him so bad. I was like, nah, like Max's going to come back. Max's going to come back. And then when, you know, I just kept pouring it on. And yeah, eventually we get, the TKO, not the straight up knockout. The buildup actually added it, added to me, like the, the way it kind of unfolded. So we didn't get that big punch issue. We didn't get that big punchy moment. But for me, that's almost like a feature, not a bug. Seeing it unfold, the way it did was just so, was extra shocking. I think if he had gotten like just colded, that would have been probably more shocking, but in a different way, you know, just in a different way.

But I think you're right. I do agree with the aesthetics of it. It doesn't match some of the other knockouts in this list. But yeah, I liked just getting locked in when I thought there was the possibility that it could happen and then it did and I didn't know what to think. for me it's really just about timing and AK kind of said it. Volcanowski got knocked out bad three months before that. That's all.

If that is a knockout didn't happen, it would easily be number two. But because of the timing, it's just like when Ryan Hall submitted BJ Penn, if that happened in his, you know, BJ Penn's prime, it would have been the best submission ever. But it happened when it happened, it was just a submission. So that's the only reason why it's. number uh well number uh well that's why i have holloway it's right for number two but you have to infirm yeah yeah i'm just saying that's just timing it's just timing that's all future generations are going to go back to mfighton.com their website they're

going to look at the 24 knockout of the year rankings and then they don't know the context they're going to go they're going to click they're going to click the videos and be like one of these is obviously much much cooler and better than the other yeah and they're going to go whoa Max Holloway, the future lightweight champion, got knocked out? Yeah, buddy. It's not, it's not a hard stat to look up that Halloway had never been knocked out. Like, I don't think that that moment is like that, I don't think that that fact is obscured by like a lack of knowledge.

I have to look at our watch parties and stuff. Like, see what had a bigger reaction because for me, I had a much bigger reaction when I saw Holloway getting knocked out. I was expecting Volcanozky to get knocked out. Oh, yeah, very far. Because I think we all thought Tepori was going to win like a grueling decision. Hollywood would just take no 10,000 shots, but no, make it to the bell. But

no, he got, it was just like, I think what A.K said, like, I just didn't, I couldn't believe what I was actually seeing that. Oh, my God, Holloway actually got finished. And to me, that was just that, that's what got it over the Wokanowski. That is probably the difference here. because I picked Tuporia to win by decision. I did not think he would knock him out, but I did think that it was possible.

And like, if you look at the betting on, Tuporia was a pretty sizable favorite over Holloway, whereas he was a slight underdog to Volkanowski. I was not surprised that he could knock out either, but the short, like, the sudden violent finish to Volk was much more like, oh, shit, that came out of nowhere as opposed to, to, frankly, to the other end of it. A. K's point. Once he heard him, I was not, oh, Max is coming back. I was like, oh, this is done.

If he can hurt him, he can kill him. And it is a matter of time until the boom gets lowered. And ultimately it did. I will, uh, go ahead. I'm taking full credit for the tie, by the way, because I didn't have, I didn't have the hallway knockout in my top five at all. Uh, the vocal was number three. My number two was Alex Pereira booping Jamal Hill because that was just incredibly memorable. between the kick to the ding ding, the waving the referee off, Jamal throwing a strike, Pereira knocking him out, doing the meme thing afterwards.

And basically, I don't condone this. And this wasn't Alex Pereira's, this is what he was, Alex Perre wasn't trying to do this. This man ruined Jamal Hill's life all year. Alex Pereer ruined Jamal Hill's life. Look at what Jamal Hill has been since that knockout occurred. That just long lasting damage and, like PTSD for Jamal Hill.

It gets crazy to think about, but there are a lot of great knockouts throughout 2024. A.K., where were you going to say? Mike, you can't take all the credit for the being a tie because someone also had to leave off the Toporio Volkanowski knockout

for it to be a tie. Oh, my God, that's great. Oh, wow. We can say, we can say it. We're all friends. I know. He's not even here. There's some spicy ones from this person that you're about to mention.

That's fine. I didn't even realize that. It is our own Damon Martin. It is our own Damon Martin, a man I trust for his own expertise. He has his opinion. He has his own opinion. He has his own opinion. He's allowed to have his own opinion.

This is America. He is allowed to have his own opinion. Of Alex Pereira's three knockouts, he has the worst one as his number two of the year. Jed, save it because, listen, wait until we get to submission of the year. We're going to have a conversation. We're going to have a conversation there too. Don't worry. Don't worry.

We are not done. We are not done. I'm circling this for our airing of, grievances. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There you go. I know that that's promotional, but it's about to be a anime fighting promotional errands. Save it.

Yeah. That could be an organizational festivist as well. So UFC 300 well represented. UFC 308 well represented here. Sharra Bullets double spinning back fist knockout gets the number four spot, just a sensational K.O. And then the aforementioned Alex Perr knockout of Jamal Hill, UFC 300 rounds out the top five.

Jed actually voted for all of the top five. So well done, Jed. AK, you went off the board a little bit. Ming Shi's head kick as the fourth best knockout of the year at UFC Macau. Give that K.O. a little bit of shine. Why did this make me? Mike, I wasn't up at friggin 4.30 in the morning or ever watching UFC Macau to leave Xi Ming off the list, okay?

I saw it live. I was in the moment with everyone else watching. I couldn't leave it off the list. That is a knockout, though, that speaks to Jed's point a little bit, though, that contextually, I feel like you need to know a lot about it for, I mean, just watching, it is pretty amazing. The savagery of it, of course, the stretcher job that poor Feng did after. So it is an amazing knockout on its own.

But I think your average person, if they went back and watched that and watched like nine other knockouts of our nominees, they'd be like, eh, probably wouldn't see the top five. It's only when you like, again, if you watched it live, you saw one, how long, long like they waited you had to wait after the knockup for the Zolt to be read it created a real moment like it was just the camera on sheming the whole time just looking concerned this this went for like three straight minutes um i guess it depends what broadcast you're watching but that's the feed i was and um so that added to how scary it was and then it's a big underdog too right she was a huge huge underdog yeah huge underdog great story talking about oh she's a doctor yeah so so

mild mannered her parents don't even know she's a fighter so that that is a that is a context knock That is one where, yes, anyone could watch it and be wowed, but what makes it a top five knockout of the year is when you know the story and you know, again, everything that happened before and well, and everything that's going to happen after. We'll see. It might even look better depending on her career goes. Other knockouts that got some votes, Venetius Solivara versus Bernardo Supai. You got three people on the panel that voted for that knockout. We mentioned Pereira versus Prakashka from Damon. That was his number two. I voted for Dustin Porre

versus Benoit Santanye from UFC 299 that was my number four we mentioned what AK did Susa versus Wilde got a vote from our own Guillermo Cruz Casey you went with something very recent Cub Swant oh no that was that was Damon excuse me Damon got Cub Swanson versus Billy Q

same card though you went with the same card though Joel Alvarez knocking out is is this an official knockout against her car close I think it's in the books as a knockup but who knows, talk about this. Yeah, for my number, I put this as my number three knockout the year.

And take in mind, this didn't even win performance of the night, by the way. It didn't even win a performance bonus by the UFC. But, yeah, Joel Alvarez, sinning, usually when I do my awards or rankings, it has to have really big significance, changing the guard, like we like to say a lot. But this one, I'm just picking because, I freak have never seen it before.

Never seen it before. It was a flying knee. Well, first of those, it was a couple of punches that knocked Durcar Close off his balance. And a flying knee and knocked him out. Then Alvarez catches a unconscious Dr. Car Close. Guitines him, chokes him out, and he's unconscious, and he keeps punching him. I just, it's, I was watching it right before we were on because I want to talk, talk about it. And like, just so many things happened in about three seconds.

And he got knocked out twice, choked out, everything. I don't know, I just, have you guys ever seen that? I've never seen that. Maybe like some random LFA prelim, I don't know. But at this level, I just have never seen anything like that. And because of that, because of just uniqueness and violence, for me, it made number three. Yeah, this was like, you know, I do like the regional and like international knockout, Miss Fist for M.A. fighting, like, gathering all those weird finishes and knockouts and moments.

That's something you see in there, like, every few months, like on, in some random show. Yeah, some random. In the Czech Republic. Yeah. But yeah, it was, and also when you consider the quality of competition, too, Draccar Close was like kind of our sleeper. Like, we're all like, ah, this guy just needs to get a top, you know, top 10, top of the opponent.

He's that one one away. Yeah, he's won four straight. He just can't get a name. He's like, is it a 9 out of 10 or 8 out of 9, like a fantastic U.C. record. And then he runs into a really, really tough guy in Joel Alvarez. And I don't know what you guys picked, like, finish for Joel. I think I thought like, I think I went close by decision. So I was way off.

I should have known that I jinxed it there. And then when the finish happened, yeah, it was genuinely shocking and confusing, but like in a really fun way. Like, did he choke him out? Did he knee him? Was it the punches after that put him away? The official result was knockout, but it really could have gone in any number of directions. It was a great knockout. There's some good ones on that card.

And there's a lot of good ones this year. It's chock full of people just getting God. And can I throw one shout out? Please. I need to throw a shout out here. And it's a shout out not just to one knockout, but to, my boy because I've never felt more seen than when the great Jose Young's taking over on BTL last week, he mentioned a fight that I fully had as my number two behind. Are you going to

to get him? Until I was looking at it, I was like, I am absolutely certain that AK will not allow me to do this. And so it will be getting its own separate award later at a different thing. But Eddie Hall knocking out the Nefati brothers. There is not a cooler knockout of the year, and there is not a knockout I have watched more than Eddie Hall going full Hulk and the Avengers power bombing a nameless CGI enemy and then sending him to the shadow realm with the right hand. It's the coolest thing I saw all year. It's one of the dopest knockouts you'll ever see.

Go check it out on MVP. It's a great website. And because we are governed by journalistic integrity and all these stupid things, we didn't get to give it its love and its rightful spot as number two because it deserves it. Yeah, Jose did slip it in as his number two and I had to ask him to revise his list. But yes, that is the real chaos. Literally, I had it as my number two. And before I clicked send to you, I was like, I don't want to, he will come back and not allow me to do this. So I didn't.

If Holloway and Gagie went to decision, that would have been the number one knockout of the year. That would have been, yeah. Yes. Just checking. Which it is. Incredible. Everybody fighting you. Number one, knockout of the year.

I have watched over to Perga. The only knockout I maybe have watched more in history at this point is the eighth bomb on this thing. Because I've seen that thing a billion times. Which was not going to watch any year this week. I'm going to rewatch Eddie Hall. Our Obama, dude, probably 20 times just then. It is incredibly cool. 20 years from now, people are going to look at our rankings.

They're like, how did these guys miss Eddie Hall? Did they not see. We'll be ridiculed in 20 years. If we were just doing combat sports knockout of the year, it's Eddie Hall in a runaway and the number two, Rebels to Spain's four second knockout of karate combat. That just happened. So there you go.

I would have a hell of a list. there. Yeah. Well, thank you, gentlemen. We're going to reconvene in a matter of moments because it's time for our second award of the show, the 24 submission of the year.

And this one was another almost unanimous first place win, but somebody on our panel didn't vote for it at all. Nowhere even in the top five, which is very interesting. And we'll get to that in a moment, but without further ado, let us reveal the nominees and winner

for the 2024 M.A. Fighting submission of the year. MMA Fightings 2024. Submission of the year. Number five. Brian Ortega over Yairier Rodriguez, U.S.C.

fight night Moreno versus Roy Vol 2. Number four. Liz Karmouche over Kana Watsunabe, PFL4. Number three. Drix duplesi over Israel, Adesonion.

UFC 305 Number two Islam Mahachev over Dustin Porreier UFC 302 And MMA Fightings Number 1

Submission of the Year Hamzaa Shemiiv over Robert Whitaker UFC 308 All right there you have it Hamza Shemayef returns after a year away from competition he returns to Abu Dhabi and just runs over Robert Whitaker at UFC 308,

broke the man's teeth with the darn face crank. And this wasn't against Reese McKeay or John Phillips. This is Robert freaking Whitaker. He did this too. Six out of seven of us had Shemai from the number one spot. But as I said earlier, there was one dissenter. One of our voters, he didn't just leave this out of the top spot. He left it off the ballot all together,

a look around the panel here who do you think it is you are correct it is e kacy lyden please show your work i feel bad i feel bad but this is one of those it's just one it's one it's one of those it was a i don't want to take anything away from mr schmai if he is a wonderful fighter and it will be a heck of a title fight when he finally gets it he earned that title fight but Robert Werdaker, he had a pre-existing injury, and Chimae found it and took advantage of it, and why it was super cool and super awesome in it, super gross, you know, it was just a pre-existing jaw injury that Whitaker had,

and I had to take that away as far as my ranking. And if we had the top six, it would have been number six, but we only voted for five, so that's the only reason why. But it was an awesome submission. It was super cool. And, you know, Shemaya was awesome. And it was violent and gross. But all right, let me hear it.

Wow. Next, you're going to tell me Al Jermaine Sterling's tile defense against Tiji Dilleshaw wasn't the knockout of the year that year. Man, Casey, what are you trying to say? Just rude. Jude, is Casey wrong? Well, he's wrong. Yeah.

But why is wrong? Yeah, he's wrong. I mean, it's just like not having it at all is a bit strange. I don't hate his choice for number one. I don't really like it being number one, but there's some really cool things in case you will certainly get to speak about it. We'll talk about that because that is in our rankings as well. This is, I think, should be pretty clearly the number one,

which is why it was almost unanimous for us. Sure, Robert Whitaker had a preexisting injury. none of us knew that. This was not an injury a soul knew about until after the fight, and Robert Whitaker goes on his podcast and says, I've had bad teeth for a while, and certainly not calling Robert Whitaker a liar, but why should we take that into account for us in general? Because he's had bad teeth in plenty of fights, and they haven't gotten shoved down his throat by the forearm of a duty he was fighting. Like, he's apparently been dealing with this for a decade. So for the entirety of his prime and we are not holding any of his other losses or other people's victories

over him against that. Why should we do it in this regard? And ultimately, this comes back to two major points. This was an incredible win in a fashion that we have never seen before against this opponent. We have seen Robert Whitaker beaten. We have seen Robert Whitaker dominated to some extent, but we have never seen him so effortlessly dominated. He got off no strikes. And I know that this is everybody's favorite statistic to throw out. But Hamza, it was a fun, cute, interesting little anecdote when Hamzaa Chama have had two significant strikes landed against him in his entire UFC career as he is blowing through outmashed opposition.

When he freaking, like, what do they call it in Mortal Kombat when you 100% somebody? When you throw a perfect game, literally against one of the greatest middleweights of of all time, one of the best fighters of this generation, and then win by breaking his face in an iconic moment in photograph. That's just, that's it. Submission is always kind of a weird one as far as the awards go. It has more opportunity for something unique or interesting to come out. But in this one, like, no, there's just not going to be a more memorable, more significant,

more iconic submission than Hamzaat Shemai of essentially locking up a title shot. and oh by the way, breaking his face his suspicion of the year. A.K. anything you want to add to that? Chad, the word you're willing for was flawless victory. Lawless victory. That's all that. It's all right. This for me, from a vibes

and how it made me feel inside standpoint, was the opposite of the Holloway-K-O. This didn't make me happy to see. I say this as a fan of both Whitaker and Shemeyev did not make me, didn't make me feel good inside. It was if Holloway's knockout was magical, this was

ugly. This was gnarly. This was sickening. This was for the sickos of the world. This was for the people who watch NASCAR to see car crashes. These are people who like when they see a football player their knee bend the wrong way. They're like, oh, you know, I got to replay that a few times. See that. That's who this

submission was for because I felt so uncomfortable when I saw the domination I mean, was one thing. Just seeing Whitaker down like that was rough. I felt the same way when DDP did it too. I was just like, man, I hate to see this happen to the Reaper. But once we very quickly realized the extent of what it happened,

and then, of course, in the subsequent days, just more and more and more details. It made you really something. I think this is a feeling a lot of fans lose after watching so many fights. It really, again, made you feel that visceral impact of what it means to be in that cage with someone and in actual combat. We always say MMA

is the closest to a real fight as you can get, which people may agree or disagree. But in this instance, this is the kind of thing they're talking about. In a street fight, in a street fight, you know, and real life, someone could grab you, and if they could be so strong,

they could permanently F up your entire mouthpiece. You know what I'm saying? Your whole mouth situation will be changed forever by a fight. I feel nauseous just thinking about it and I mean that in the most loving way like it is just a visual

and a moment I'll never forget and just another testament to the mystique of Shemaya man like we we slag this guy a lot for inactivity and whatever other various dumb things he may do but he's one of I say the three most must watch fighters in the UFC every time he gets in there and he proved that again with I think

again the best admission of 2024 for. Rest of our list sees Casey's number one, Islam Makachev stopping Dustin Porre at UFC 302. That finished number two overall for the total vote. Glad to see Drigis duplice's submission of Israel Adasani get some shine, because I feel like that was left off a lot of lists that I had seen on social media, but it's M.AFighting.com, as Jed said, it's great website.

We got that one right. Middleweight champ finishes number three. Liz Karmouche's Hail Mary Arm bar of Kana Watanabe. I'm glad this one made the list as well. Over in the Professional Fighters League, getting some representation, that finished fourth, while Brian Ortega's arm triangle choke of Yaya Rodriguez, a UFC Mexico City rounds out the top five. All three of you gentlemen had votes for submissions outside of the top five. So I wanted to give you each a chance to shine some light on those submissions.

And AK, I'll begin with you. Vince Morales had a tough run in the UFC the first go, goes three and five. no longer with the promotion, goes on the regional scene, goes 5 and 0, and now he is back in the UFC, but the victory that got him back there was your number five submission of the year. So tell us about it.

Yeah, this was described. I'm not a submission expert. So I remember people seeing when this happened talking about it. Yes, he submits Hunter as your fellow sort of UFC veteran in a fight that, I don't know, maybe the winner, it was like an unofficial tryout to get back at the UFC. Not that it was based on this one fight, Like you said, Mike, Vince Morales had been doing really good work on the regional scene,

hadn't lost since being released. But you always, you know, as a fighter, I think when you're on the regional scene, you don't know what performance it is that's going to put you over the top. You don't know the timing that's going to land you that right opportunity. But this was it. I mean, he showed out, and he put on a Peruvian necktie. That's what I would have called it if I was just watching live. But as I saw it circling on social media, people were saying it was like a unique variation of it.

I can't remember. I think he came up with a name for it. I regret not having it handy at the moment. But yeah, he broke it down. If you go to his Twitter, you can see Vince Marles sort of break down how he kind of figured out how to do this. I don't know if it's something he practiced.

But it's just this great moment of, at least what seemed like improvisation, you know? Again, we're talking about Shemaya, you know, winning a fight with this incredible squeeze. Sometimes you're in there and, you know, I have to implore people to watch this finish. I've been to Marles and Hunter Azure. And the moment presents itself.

And I don't know if he did it consciously or if his instincts kicked in, but he comes up with just this brilliant, brilliant, brilliant finish. And it's not about this one that's not about the stakes. It is about sort of the, wow, like, I don't know if I've seen that before. And there's always a place for I've never seen that before on the submission of the year list. So I was very happy to slot that in. And I just hope more people check that submission out. Jed, you went with UFC veteran turned PFL fighter.

Braveheart Stevie Ray as your number four submission of the year. PFL Europe 3 well represented in the MMA fighting year-end award rankings. And we'll discuss another big moment from that card coming up in a little bit. But why did Stevie Ray get your vote? First, I do want to say Morales Azure was my number six. So it just missed making my list because proving neckties are dope. and so I got no issues as AK putting it there. This was pretty simple.

Two big reasons. One, I'm old enough to remember if you just did a twister, you probably won submission of the year, much less are hoping to scratch your way into the top five. So the game done changed. But the context around this one was enough to pump it into the top five for me. It is Stevie Ray as the second one. It is his perhaps somewhat lovingly, perhaps jokingly.

known as the Scottish Twister. He famously hit one on Anthony Pettus a few years back. And so this is kind of a signature move of his, and it is done in Stevie Ray's first time fighting in Scotland in like several years, and a fight that is not certainly, but was billed to be his retirement fight. So just imagine, guys, you have a long, a successful MMA career, never great, very good, a dude that people, certain people will remember, certainly millions have watched you, you've had it by most accounts a good MMA career.

It's your last fight in your home country before you hang up the gloves and you hit your personal move, which is a sick-ass move to close the whole damn show out. Like, that deserves all the love that I can give it and all the love I can give it in this context is a spot as one of the five best submissions of the year. Gierme Cruz and Jose Young's join AK on the Vince Morales one. Jed, you were partnered with Damon Martin for the Stevie Ray one. Casey, you went off the board with two picks outside of the top five. What are those and why did they make your list?

Actually, I don't know how to say his name. Is it Kokey? Do you know how to say it? Clever Kokey. I call it Koki. I call it Koki. I don't know that's right. I'm not sure if I'm saying it right.

I'm going to talk about Koki Archiletta. That was at Ryzen earlier this year. I'm not sure what it was right in the card it was. But I just, I'm a submission guy, and I am just scared of hillhooks. And especially hill hooks and MMA. And this was just a spectacular hill hook out of a wild, wild scramble between two, I believe, two top 15, top 20 bantamweight. in the world facing each other on horizon.

If you watch the fight, it was a great, I think a foot sweep that led to the takedown. The archiletta started. And then there was just a wild scramble. And from that scramble, Kilke just basically launches out of it and just throws on a hillhook. And we just don't see. I just like how crazy looking it was. And it was a crazy scramble, high level technical skills from it. And just crazy amount of violence.

And I'm just thinking about Archiletta, like how you're just. in the fight and then within half a second, you have to go. I have to tap out right now. Otherwise, my knee would explode. And I just, I love hill hooks. And at this level, that's why I got my number two. And what was the other one? Oh, oh, Gingeroba, Amanda Limosch, just because high level and just nothing,

nothing that might blow you away as far as like highlights, but just, just technically flawless. I think she went from a triangle to had a triangle and then threw on an arm bar. Just technically fundamentally sound submission. And that's, I'm all for that. So, and at a high level.

Yeah. Shout out to all the submitters out there making noise. A lot of great subs in 2024. A lot of great rookies, too, in major promotions. But none were better than Carlos Pratchez. He was the runaway winner of the 2024 rookie of the year. Four and four finishes, four bonuses.

Tough to draw it up better than that, especially when you add a main event stoppage win over Neil Magni at the historic, never to be forgotten UFC Vegas 100. And Jed, I wanted to make sure you got a little shine and gave some shine here. There's one other rookie you wanted to shout out as well, please. Well, there are two because I am actually of the opinion that we should count Dakota Ditchie as a rookie. We don't really treat PFL Europe as like a major MMA org. I know it is part of PFL, and so we're blurring of the lines. We're like, we don't cover the PFL Europe's the same way we cover PFL one, two, through 10. So I think she'd have a case, but ultimately not what we decided.

And so I think given the structures we set this up, pretty obviously the second best rookie of the year is my boy, Giansova. Like, shout out to fighting nerds. They would have three of the top four, if you. if not three of the top three rookies of the year, if we extended this out. They have been on an unbelievable run this year. And while Carlos Bratis Deserves his flowers, certainly is the four-runner. Not of the whole team, that's Kyle Barallio, but has been the dude to make the most noise this year because he got four fights in, got ranked. Gian Silva had three unbelievable performances, bumps up away class and kills Drew Dober,

and not all that long a notice. And if he had snuck a fourth in there and gotten any ranked opponent, maybe he is, maybe we're really having to nip and tuck and figure out which of the two between them deserves it. But frankly, just shout out to fight nerds because

those two dudes are awesome. And I think they're going to be in our lives for a very long time. I think you're right. So there you go. More from these gentlemen in a minute. But let's head to the, oh, please, Casey, please.

Because we didn't because Ponce was such a clear winner. I thought there were other actually good nominees. And I want to just give a shout out to, I want to say his name right, Zhang Ming Yang, the 205er who went to another this year for two first round knockouts. That guy knocked out my former teammate Ozzy Diaz, bummer for him. But that guy is to me a, I don't know if he's going to be a top five, top 10 guy, but just a future all-action guy that UFC will have around for a while. And shout out to rookie.

great rookie sorry, my rookie of the year and upon my heart, Taco Padilla, who went two and O this year and the UFC with two first round finishes.

So we're giving them a shout out too. Yes, shout out to them. Shout out to all of you. Shout out to you, gentlemen. But we get ahead to the final two awards, and if you follow social media, both of these awards

appear to be the most contentious of the year. So we'll close the show with Fighter of the Year. But first, let's talk about the scraps that defined 24 in our sport

the incredible battles of will that we saw in a cage, octagon, or ring, because it is time to award the 2024 fight of the year. MMA Fightings, 24, fight

of the year. Number five, Lewis McGrillan versus Dean Garnett, PFL Europe 3. Number four, Islamahachev versus Dustin Porreier, UFC 302. Number three, Dustin Porreys versus Benoit Sandini, UFC 299. Number two, Esteban Riepovich versus Daniel Zell-Huber, UFC 306,

and MMA Fighting's number one fight of the year. Max Holloway versus Justin Gaichie, UFC 300. All right, more hardware for Max Blessed Holloway and just another fight of the year plaque for Justin Gaichie. It's just absolutely insane how many times Justin Gaichi has been one half of this award. Holloway versus Gaichy at UFC 300 for the BMF title, wins fight of the year.

In a pretty close vote, this one may be met with some criticism. some controversy, as I've seen on social media. Number two is UFC 306, Docha UFC, Esteban Riebovich versus Daniel Zell-Huber, definitely deserves to be on this list. The round of the year was round three without question. Dustin Porre gets two spots in the top five, number three and number four for the fights against Islam Makachev

and Benoit Santini, and the absolutely wild Bannamwait fight between Lewis McGillan, and Dean Garnett at PFL Europe 3 gets the number five spot because when you get 14 knockdowns total in a fight that doesn't go to the scorecards, that is absolutely insane. But let's go back to the winning fight and let's go back to my pal Jed Michoud because Jed, as I said, this is a controversial one.

The narrative surrounding this fight in the aftermath for knockout of the year, without question it was knockout of the year. But for the fight of the year conversation is, And not so much because Max Holloway put on a master class, and he beat the hell out of Justin Gachie. And Justin Gaiti was just really tough. Not my words. But that's what I've seen a lot on here.

And I was telling people on BTL, I think everyone needs to go back and rewatch this fight by taking all the emotion of the live watch out of it. You and I both had this at number one. So I ask you, why are we right? Because it's the best part of the year. I felt that way. the way that I've seen really smart people

have very much respect, think that this is not the correct call and that we are putting a hat on a hat. This is too much praise for this fight. I encourage everybody, like you said, go back and rewatch this because I love me some, some Zell Huber Riebevich.

Like, that is a great fight. That fight was a great round and a very, very, very good fight before then. Like, the Max Gehche fight, I think we all just have a colloquial, collective misremembering of it because I had it. I've since rewatch that fight like eight times. I had that fight two and two going into the final round.

And yes, Max Holloway was winning that final round. If he doesn't knock him out, you know what that means? Still probably the best fight of the year because in the championship round, Max Holloway put on a master class. This is the first time we saw Max Holloway get dropped. And Gaichi is battling back from getting his nose busted almost immediately in the fight. It is a dog fight back and full. a riper of a battle for 24 minutes and 58 seconds or whatever,

and then it ends in such an iconic fashion. And because the way it ends is so overpowering to the rest of it. And because Max was on his way to clearly winning the fight, right? I think people just misremember how good the action was for 25 minutes. And while I, like I said, I love Riebevich versus El Huber. I love some of the other fights, Porie BSD. There are a couple of things that are really significant in its favor. One, as great as those fights were, this was 25 minutes.

25 minutes is more than 15. And so if you are similar or better, you just have more of it, and that is better. And two, again, like, this is iconic between two of the. five greatest action fighters of all time. Like it is, we will not regret putting this as number one in the future. This is a Hall of Fame worthy fight with a Hall of Fameworthy finish. And to me,

the finish should not overpower or overshadow the fight. It should be the cherry on top of a beautiful and delicious and violent Sunday, which frankly, Mike, is what we all said. Because how many times in the history of this sport have we been able to, to look at a fight and say, that's going to be fight of the year. Because I said that, you said that, we all said that, looking at 300. This is the presumptive fight of the year. And so many times in the history of this sport, that has, we have not met the expectations we set. We have set the expectations too high and they cannot live up to it. Not this time. They

fucking did. And they did with also an incredible finish. So the totality of it, I figure. feel very clearly, to me, this is the best fight of the year. Gereme Cruz and Jose Youngs also agreed with us. They add this as their number one. Damon Martin headed at number two. AK, you had this at number four. Your number one was Islam Makachev versus Dustin Porre, a UFC 302 for the lightweight title.

How did you land there? I love that Makachiev-fight fight right away. I might just be a sucker for Makachev because I also, And I think this was, I don't remember this was unanimous, but it was our fight of the year when it happened that Makachev and Volkanowski won. So I don't know, maybe there is just something about the UFC lightweight champion,

our number one pound for pound guy that like, I mean, based on those things, it just raises the stakes of like every fight he's in. I probably didn't give Dustin prior enough credit. You know, there's always that surprise factor, right? This happens in any sport where you're like, oh, I didn't think this person or this team was as good as, or is going to perform that well

or they're going to get smoked. and then you watch and then the way it unfolds, you're suddenly like, you're so impressed by how the underdog perform that it elevates both guys in a way, it elevates the fight. So that probably happened here as well. I wanted to bring up an interesting scoring thing because,

so Jed, you were not alone in the Gagchi Holloway, having a two and two. One of the judges' scores was also 3838. That was Judge Junichiro Camijo. And similar with Makachev and Porre as well, Makachev and Poria, two of the judges had it from Makachev going to the fifth round. And then one judge, Chris Lee, had a 38-38-38-drawing to the final round.

So, again, people would, I don't know how they feel about the judging of Chris Lee and Comedgeo, typically. But I'm just saying, officially, you weren't, like, completely crazy. There were judges who, like, agreed that it was a close fight. And I think people are definitely remember Macha Chep and Porier as being closer than Gae and Holly, whether it was or not. Again, probably for this reason that, again, it was more, it was more. competitive than people expected because this might have been Puri's last hurrah. And this dude is a legend. I hope he continues to fight as a fan if he just decides not to and says screw it. I mean, it sounds like he's going to, but tomorrow he says, no, I've made enough money. I've taken enough

damage. I just want to spend the rest of my life from my family and other interests. Fantastic. So if this was his last hurrah, it was a great way to go out on as high as you go without, of course, actually winning the fight and winning the title. And just like the Holloway-Ga-Ga-Ga-Fight, I'm probably putting a lot of weight on the final sequence where Makachev may be thinking he needed to finish or not, I'm not sure, but just pulls off that beautiful like improvised takedown. It gets for a's back and just, it was so,

it was so beautiful to watch. So the artistry of Makachev, I guess, is always going to give him the nod, but I completely understand the Gathechee Holloway moment, or Holly of Gathechie, I should say. and yeah I don't begrudge it so I just I just had a little bit lower probably for some of the reasons Jed said as I'm looking back on it maybe maybe I didn't remember how many swings there were and I didn't give case enough credit you know for that one knockdown which they didn't score a knockdown for some reason but I'm very comfortable as well with Makachab and Pori I just think beautifully competitive fights stakes are just a little bit higher we're talking about lightweight title fight best fighter in the world and forari you did great but Makachab was better you know there's a few things we can count on that are absolutely going to happen. Death, taxes, and Casey doing something real fun, weird, and against the norm.

Casey went in a category like this. And I got to say, I may not agree with it, but I respect the heck out of it. Because Casey, you went with Umar Nurmaga Madoff versus Corey Sandhagan at UFC Abu Dhabi in August as your number one. Please take the floor, because I have multiple questions here. One, why was this your number one? And the second question is, why was Holloway Gachie not even on your list? Okay, I'm going to have to kind of talk my way through this, so feel free to jump in.

I was like, I've been dreading this portion, this show and this portion of it for a couple days now because I know I was going to fill the wrath. But as far as like not having Gaiti, She Holloway or Marcus Joporriere in my top five. Really, I was kind of, I wanted to spread the wealth, essentially. He was already K of the year, and I picked Marcus Jep Horea as my sub of the year. And for me, those fifth round finishes, in my mind, I had already decided who the winner was. From my initial viewing, I thought Holloway already was on his way to winning the fight, and I thought Islam was on his way to winning the fight.

And they kind of just kind of just sealed the deal, basically. in the fifth rounds for me. And so I kind of gave him those awards already, and I wanted a bit spread the, I guess spread the wealth a little bit. I don't actually hate that. I don't hate that argument, by the way, Casey. Like, I legitimately, there was a very big piece of me

that considered not giving Gay Chief Max as Fighter, as Fight of the Year because it is going to get, like, there was no doubt in my mind it was winning knockout. And so like, I don't hate that argument. It's a little game's been shippy. But I think that is reasonable. I accept it, yeah. I think that's reasonable.

Yeah. And everything you guys said about those fights, you're absolutely 100% true. You're under the fight. It wasn't a, the Holloway fight wasn't a blowout. It was still competitive up until, Holloway was winning, but it was still competitive up until the last two seconds. And, um, um, uh, Islam and Poirier was a competitive fight up until it was finished too. So, uh, yeah.

But the reason I went with my fight of the year, Umar versus San Hagan, is basically I just kind of picked what I like to watch. I'm just going to kind of, it was my personal preference. I know this isn't the fight. If no one's, like, you know, you bring your friend over. They've never seen MMA. Here, I'm not going to, I'm actually not going to show them, Umar and Omega Mada versus Corey Sananagan. I will probably actually show him Max Holloway versus Justin Gage for just the, the first time viewer. But just me, I guess it's 20 years in the sport, I just love high-level fighting.

That was five rounds, incredibly competitive. And I'm big on this for fight of the year. It had all the martial arts. It mixed the martial arts. So that's why I loved it. And that was why it was my number one, even though my number one fight didn't make the top five on anyone else's voting. That was one of my toughest cuts. That was one of my toughest cuts.

I had had that in the fifth spot for a long time. And then, oh, it was between that and Michael mentioned it later, but it was between that and Jan Figurato for me. So I just, maybe a reasoncy bias, I went with Yon and Figurato. And that fight, we kind of knew the winner going into the fifth round. It wasn't like, it wasn't necessarily high drama. But there was just high skill level, the entire 25 minutes. And maybe just lose the mood I was in that day.

I wanted that bite to get recognized. That was my question for you, Casey. It was just like, I'm not actually surprised by your list, and I don't even hate it. We could quibble and disagree. I was, in fact, shocked that you went, Corey and Omar won, but didn't even have Jan Figgy listed. Because those folks were very similar to me. Like, they are speaking to the same thing of, extremely high level significant important fights that that appeal to the hardcore fan base

and you know martial artists more maybe than the broader casuals and so like I was I was shocked to see that that didn't make your list and uh that was just interesting but I don't hate your list there's the truth is guys there were a lot of really sick fights this year man a lot of really good really good contenders this year. Actually, me taking out Rebecca Orbi, Orbi, I hated taking that one out because that was like an incredible round. And yeah,

Zell-Huber-Ribovich kind of threw the whole, through everything off. Because I think we, we knew it was going to be a good fight, but none of us expected that. And I think that just kind of threw the whole year off and the sense of like that kind of one fight that just kind of snuck in there. But the first four months of the year, we were all like, what's the best fight?

Is it? That's what happened yet? Curtis, Brennan Allen, too? It was for a while. It was. And like, that's a good fight. And it made somebody's list. But it's like, there were three, almost four months.

We're just like, nothing's jumping out. And then business picked up real quick. Yeah. Sean Strickland, Drink his 2 plus C did not even get a vote. And that was like a really good fight. Like, not one vote for that one. I'm actually kind of glad because I'm just kind of glad because that fight got in I was there alive and I quite enjoyed it but like that got inflated a little bit like in people's I remember the videos we're actually these two went to war and I'm like the first three rounds were like the crowd was like a sleep like honestly the crowd was like I was there because we didn't have anything else to latch off to for so long yeah the first month of the year people were so jazzed up I was like I was there really turned it turned into a really great fight but the first three rounds the crowd was like out of it I thought of people do not run this to crowd is to crowd was out of it. Once Neil Magny beat Mike Malott, everything was kind of like, we got the women's

Vandemway title fight and then and then we ended with that. But Casey had a bunch of fights on his list, not making our overall top five. You also had the main event of UFC Vegas 98, Bryn and Reuval versus Tetsu or a Tyra. It's a great pick. Dan Hooker versus Matush Gamrod from UFC 305 and Chris Cyborg versus Larissa Pacheco from PFL, Battle of the Giants, all great fights. Jed and A.K. went with Pieterian versus Davis and Figurado, the UFC Macau main event, which was a terrific fights. One of my favorite fights of the year. Jed, why did this make your number three spot? I just thought it was a sensational fight. So the way, I think to some extent, I agree with Casey about like thematically and how we do things. I thought Omar Sandhagan was awesome, but ultimately it was

so close and there were a lot of not moments because they were nullifying each other to not create it was it was tense and it was competitive but it was the kind of competitive where each guy is gaining an inch whereas yon and figgy each guy was gaining several feet and then they were moving back and forth there were just bigger variations bigger wavelengths I thought that that was it spoke to the same things like i mentioned high level mixed martial arts back and forth a fight that I thought Figgi was going to be very outmatched in, and he really rose to the occasion, ultimately ended up losing, but really, really acquitted himself very well there,

Gabe Piotrion, a lot of problems. And so I don't really have an issue with almost any pick anyone has in their top five. I'm not even sure if you asked me a month from now, if my top five would be the same. But I remember watching that fight and thinking, this isn't a visceral, one of the best fights I've ever seen, unbelievable feeling like you get with Max versus Geishi or Zohyber Rievovich, but this was a, God damn, I'm going to watch that fight like 12 times

because what they did out there was awesome, and the swings were very real, and these are two guys at the peak of their powers, really battling it out to see who is the better fist fighter. AK, you had this in number five. How do we get here? Anything you want to add? Yeah, well, about that fight in one of it. Vintage, just vintage Piotr-Yon, man.

This was backed up, I think, what a lot of us had said, where his run of poor results wasn't, it needs to be, like, analyzed more closely than just looking at a bunch of red on his ledger going like, oh, wow, he's falling up. Like, there was, it's not right to say extenuating circumstances. It's just like the people he fought were really good. And certainly they just didn't go.

Like, it's like a Marab man. matchup in there. Everyone looks batting as Marab, right? So, like, I think people look at that fight and they're like, oh, well, Piotr-Yon, like, how is he going to come back to the title contingent. But you forget how good this guy is when he's at his best and when he's not, you know, doesn't have a nonstop cardio beast breathing down his neck for like 25 minutes, right? Or 15 minutes, however long their fight was. So we all, I think a lot of us expected a bounce back performance from Piotr-eon. I believe he was the favorite going in. And just seeing the man deliver and take care of this was so beautiful. Like, I think he has a lot of good fights left in him.

I think he's only like 32 or something. Like he's one of those guys who people, I think people think he's old. Like he's maybe old in fight years, but he's not old man old. So great fight. Happy to have on the list. Are we sure Lewis McGillan and Dean Garnett is not the best fight of the year? Are we sure? Like, is this because it was in the PFL that it just loses points?

I know a lot of people, obviously a lot of people didn't see it. I think let's be straight. A lot of people just didn't see this fight. They didn't watch this fight. PFL did a good. thing. I don't know if it was the week after, but soon after. The fight is free on YouTube, guys. There's no reason not to watch it. If you have not watched Lewis McGillan and Dean Garnett, maybe the best, dumbest fight of the year. It's right there. It's right on YouTube. Look it up.

It's look it up and watch it. It is so exciting. PFL and PFL Europe. Yes. It's up there. You can't miss it if you're looking for it. It's very easy to find. And it's up there in its entirety. It is so good. It is so good. It is so wild. I understand. It doesn't have this near the stakes of like any of the other fights in our list. But if you were just talking of pure thrills, this might be the best fight of the year. Like, if someone has this number one on their list, including all, like, a list of all promotions, and this is number one, I don't think you're crazy at all. It's that good.

Go watch this fight. Casey, not in Casey. I was going to go, let me say this to you, okay. It doesn't have the stake, so it's probably not number one. I feel pretty confident and this could be me being wrong if you don't have it in your top five it's because you just didn't watch it

like there is not this is what you ask for when you ask for fights there are 14 knockdowns and like 12 submission attempts is it it is not the highest level fighters competing doesn't really matter

when you get action like this all guys no breaks, almost zero defense, certainly no first level defense. It's all survival defense. Like, 14, I'll have to say,

14 knockdowns and like eight submission attempts. It is unbelievable. And I think, I honestly think that if you don't have it on your list, it's because you didn't, you're just like, I'm not going to watch a PFL Europe thing. And you just didn't see it.

Like it is, it should be number five on everybody's list. Because it's not, the names aren't significant. and the fight isn't meaningful, but it should get the perfunctory shout out to this insane weird thing that happened.

I had it number two. I had a number two, and I almost wanted to say F the world and put a number one. That's how much I enjoyed that. I would respect that so much. This fight kind of feels like the Eddie Haw knockout

in the sense that... It's a different product. It's a different product. It's such weird. Yeah, it's almost to feel like the same sport has like a Machachepore or Gatia Holloway. It's very, it's something.

Honestly, AK, this fight feels like it's supposed to be the missed fist fight of the year. Maybe. It just happened to be on a PFL branded thing. Yeah. So it's just like, if they're going to just not put it in PFL, it absolutely been missed this fight of the year. And instead it just gets to be top five because it's, it's the silliest fight and it's so much fun. Well, everyone should watch out for, for, what do I say, McGrillen?

Why, I'm messing up his name now, McGrelland, because he just won. their European tournament. 100K and pretty much punches the ticket, I think, if he wants to go fight. The only problem is, PFL has never hosted, the North American version, has never hosted a Bantamweight tournament.

But they got a bunch of guys there, especially from Europe and from Mena. So if they're going to introduce 135 next season, this is the time to do it. And you definitely bring this guy in because he is a potential star for them. So exciting. Yes.

Don Davis should have named this fight as his favorite fight. It's right there. I don't know if you saw this. Don Davis tweeted out, what's your PFL fight of the year? This one was not even listed. Francis,

Henan Ferreira makes the list, but not this one. It wasn't listed. Was it only domestic? Francis Ferreira, Cyborg Pacheco, collared pit bull. So only domestic.

Only domestic fights. Only domestic fights, maybe. Not including Europe and Maine. You know, let's give Adonra. Maybe, right? No. I can't.

I just can't. This is the reason why this fight was not watching up. But other great fights that got some votes include Brendan Allen versus Chris Curtis too. It's a forgotten apex classic from January. Alex Pereira versus Cleo Roundtree at UFC 307. Gianzilla versus Drew Dober. And then, as you mentioned earlier,

the absolute war between Matush Rubetschki and Mick Debeck Oralby, just a lot of bangers in 2024. Thank you. gentlemen, we will go back to you in a moment. But now there's only... I just want to say... More. More. Two important shoutouts to just to put a bow on this.

Justin Gachey's fourth fight of the year for us, unbelievable accomplishment. And nobody's talking about this. This is Max Holloway's first fight of the year. After everything Max Holloway has done, this will be the first fight of the year award he ever takes home. because 2019, his unbelievable rematch with Dustin Porey happened to come 30 minutes before

Israel Additioned and Kelvin Gastloon put on one of the five best fights I've ever seen in my life. I was in the room for both fights. Max Holloway has somehow never won this despite being one of the greatest action fighters of all time, and this is frigging Gae's fourth. So, well done, both dudes. Four-fight of the years is ludicrous. Yeah, Dustin Porey,

is always in this conversation. He had two fights on the top five. Just absolutely insane. We are living in the golden age of action fighters. It's the best. Yes. Enjoy this while we have it. Guys,

there's only one award left to decide, to reveal, and it has been a debate for the past two months. It's a two-horse race for a fighter of the year. So who gets the nod? Who are the other nominees that were part of this race?

Check it out. M.A. Fightings, 2024, Fighter of the Year. Number five. Alessandre Pantoja, number four. Joaquin Buckley. Number three. Drix duplice, number two. Alex Pajeda, and M.M.A.

Fidings, number one, fighter of the year. Ilya Toporia. There you have it. The 2024 MMA fighting fighter of the year is the UFC featherweight champion, Ilya, what a back-to-back this man had in 2024, knocking out two of the greatest featherweights in the history of the sport in consecutive fights, brutally knocking out Alexander Volcanowski to win the belt at UFC 298 in February, and then becomes the first fighter to knock out Max Holloway at UFC 308 in October in his first.

title defense. He gets five. Actually, he gets, yeah, five of the seven first place votes. UFC light heavyweight champion Alex Pereira finished second after knocking out Jamal Hill, Uriper Haschka, and Khalil Rondry. Poetan receives two first place votes.

UFC middleweight champ, Drickas DuPloce, finishes third, finishing fourth. Joaquin freaking Buckley. What a turnaround that man had perceptually. Four and oh in 2024. Worst callout in the history of the UFC and the man just turns it around. And then number five is the UFC flyway champion, Alexandra Pantoja, after two successful title defenses. Jed, you are shaking your head. So I will just,

I'm just going to let you go. Why are you shaking your head? Oh, Buckley should not be in the fight of the year. That's, what? Luckily is, luckily is the comeback fighter of the year. He's coming back from his own failings. But, uh, we can get to that. later. We're really quibbling at the bottom of the top five, but I think my number five really got widely disrespected this year. And, you know, maybe he's brought a little bit of that on himself, a la Mr. Buckley. But if you're just looking at performances the year, I feel like my number five should easily be in front of Buckley. But that's a future problem. for us to discuss because we have to discuss the great debate that should not exist at all.

Well, let's discuss it because for me, it all came down to, because you look at this in two ways, Jed. You prefer quantity, and that was like the big argument against it and all the hate DMs that I'm a moron and I don't know what I'm talking about, sangulates poorest fire of the year. Well, he only won two fights, but Pereira won three, or you prefer quality. and while Pereira had some great finishes and performances, the quality of Iliate Tupori's wins, frankly, is unmatched in 2024, in my opinion. And frankly, is matched very rarely over, like, the history of the UFC. I assume you agree with that, which is why you had Ili Tupori at number one.

Of course. I said heading into the fight that the winner of Iliate Tuporia Max Holloway was fighter of the year in my mind, and there were no questions asked. because if Max had won, he has the 300 Gachi, which we have already given all the awards to and talked about plenty. And then he would have reclaimed the Featherway title. It would have been nearly an unprecedented achievement. A fighter has never reclaimed. Only once in history has a fighter reclaimed a title.

It was like five and a half years since they previously held it. The lone time that has ever happened was the great Cookie Monster versus Rose Namayunis fight that we all. would like to block from our memory, like that would have clearly done it. But instead, Ilya puts quite possibly the two greatest back to, like the greatest back-to-back wins ever, there's an argument. I'm not saying it is true, but there are not many times in history where someone has had one, two back-to-back fights that are as significant because I personally have Vokanowski in the top 10 greatest of all-time fighters.

And I have Max Hollowing the top 15. And while I don't think either are probably in their peak peak, they both are very close to their primes and to not just beat them, but to dominate them in the fashion that he did as a guy who was probably not in his prime yet either. A changing of the guard moment, a significant moment, unbelievable wins and performances, those are very clearly better than Alex Pereira's wins. Alex Pereira beat, and it's not necessarily his fault, but light heavyweighted trash. And so he beat two people who aren't probably that good, and he beat a dude he's already beaten and appears to be a stylistic softball matchup for him. It's not to take things away from Pereira. Pereira is obviously my number two.

And I think there is an argument for Pereira, but not in the terms that most of us are looking at this lens. Mike, I thought you summed it up best on BTL this past week. Michelle Puerre, or not Michelle, not Michelle Pereira at all. Alex Pereira is the MVP. There's a narrative component to it. He did the most stepping in on short notice. But if you're just looking for who was the fighter of the year who did the best stuff this year,

I think it's only a Tupori and a runaway. AK, you went the opposite direction. You went with Alex Poetan Pereira as your fighter of the year. Why is Jed wrong? Oh, I don't know if he's wrong because he, he, he brings up a point that kind of explains my pick. I'm all in on the narrative. I'm all in on the narrative of Alex Pareda saved the UFC in 2024.

Alex Pareda is the biggest star right now. Again, these aren't things that should, you know, that are necessarily like make his performances or the quality of his wins more impressive than Tuporia, but perception is everything, right? And I think when we look back in 2024, it is going to be viewed as, the year of Padetta. That's probably not fair to Deporia. It's probably not fair to Velkanowski and Holloway. Because, yes, if you said someone would beat those two guys, knock out those two guys in the same calendar year, you couldn't imagine someone having a better year. But there was just

the way that Padetta was marketed, the way he marketed himself. I use word a lot, I know, but the mystique, the mystique this guy's able to maintain. All of his fights were memorable, too. And I'm not saying, I'm not saying, I'm not saying, DePoreas weren't. I'm saying, like, this is what helps Padetta is that clearly the competition wasn't as good. But each one is memorable in its own way, the Jamal Hill, the Let Me Cook Pro, telling the referee to back off. And also just beating up Jamal Hill,

who people don't like. The Yuri-Borajka rematch, obviously the most dangerous of the three fights, but he won that one. And then kind of the stare after, and like, Yuri just stumbling. Yeri helped a lot, too, by the way, with the bill for that fight with the whole, like,

Alex Panetta is dealing with evil spirits. Like, I don't like that. He's cheating. He's cheating. He's using it. Demonry. That was crazy. And that added so much to it.

Like, he owes Barachka a favor for building it up like that. And Roundtree, I think a lot of us thought, in the know, thought it was going to be competitive. And it turned out that way. It turned into a great fight. People might want to hold this against Pineda that he didn't just, like, blow out Roundtree, but I never thought that was going to happen. I always thought I kind of believed in the glory killer thing. I thought that Roundtree is like a tricky stand-a-matchup for anybody. And we got sort of one of the underrated, like, great fights of the year.

It didn't make any of our list. I don't think it got a vote even. But it was a very, very good title fight and a very memorable fight. And ended with, again, another brutal, bloody, just nasty finish. Just the aftermath, all the interviews that Khalil did after. God bless him. I don't know why he put us on front of a camera. But he was having a microphone in front of his face.

The gau's just horrifying. So all of that added up to what is the year put in it. Again, based on quality of competition, it's not close. Literally the two greatest featherweights of all time are on Tepur's resume by K.O. in the same year. I'm going to murder you. Yeah. I'm going to come to Canada. Oh, God.

Sorry, that was John Anakin. Sorry, that was the John Anakin me. The two consensus greatest featherweights of all time, Jed, is what I meant to say. I'm sorry. But yes, two of the top four greatest feather weights of all time. Let me clarify. I just mentioned Aldo earlier, too. But when people remember this year, it is the year of Padena.

So I bought into that fully, and I think that's a pretty strong justification for him to be number one. Casey, anything you want to add for Team Teporia here? Oh, it was basically a two horse race. And I agree everything with what Jed said about Toporia. And if we had an employee of the year, of course it goes to Alex Pereira because he made the UFC so much freaking money. So employee of the year, independent contractor of the year, goes to Alex Pereira. But fighter of the year, big difference, Ilya, Leah Toporia. Let's talk about some of the off-the-board things that happened.

Again, boring Mike Hack over here. All five my votes were in the top five. Dracus duplicacy gets five third-place votes, and then two voters didn't vote for him at all. And that includes, you guessed it, E. Casey Leiden, who gave his third-place vote to PFL Rising Star, Dakota Dichiba, who was 4-0, four finishes, a PFL World Championship title after stopping,

Ila Santos. Yes, AK? Before Casey goes, because I'm with it, I also voted for Dakota Dichita. Before Casey goes, two things. One, I meant to say this before, if you had told us that there would be like, that, you know, obviously our list is always going to be a lot of U.S. Champions, that the one guy in the top five that wasn't the U.C. champion, if you told the beginning of the year, it would be Joaquin Buckley. It would sound completely insane. So I think that's where Jets coming from, like he shouldn't even be in there. It looks, it does look wrong. I'm happy with it because I voted for him as my number five

guy. I'm happy he made it, but it does look very crazy. Topora, Peta, Duplice, Pentosa, and Joaquin Bukkling. That's wild. One of these guys is not like the others. Yet, yet, yet. Dijava, I think one reason I didn't feel like we need to give her flowers in Rukadio was I thought she'd get more support for Fighter of the Year. I actually thought she was going to crack our top five.

So Casey and I both had her in there. But that was it. It is just Casey and I voted for Dichiva. Again, I get it. PFL competition, we sort of like, you know, it's maybe in general a notch below UFC, but there's no question that Tyler Santos win, right? Like, that was such a validation of what we thought we had with Dichiva, and it actually played out in practice.

So I was very happy to have her on the list, Casey. I don't know about you. Yeah. So to me to sell you on Dichiva, I think four no, four first round knockouts, four first round knockouts, and just what she did to Santos was unreal. no one's ever done that before. And I want to give her a lot of credit, what she did to Jenna Bishop, too.

Juna Bishop took, lost a razor-close decision to Talas Santos. She's also, I think, very good, too. She says, I'm the name recognition. She destroyed Juna Bishop. And, yeah, I just think Talasantos, I'm sorry, Dishava was my number three.

I don't know. I mean, I mean. For clarity, for clarity, there was three first round knockouts. Oh, three, sorry. She finished Tyler Santos in the second round. Second round, okay. I want to make sure we're on the,

board correctly there. Four, four, five, it finishes. Yeah. And, yeah. Yeah. I had her. No, go ahead. I had her number eight.

I had a number eight. I had her, sorry. I had her behind the five there. I had her behind Diego Lopez and Carlos Pratchez as well. Because, I mean, look, the one thing that didn't get me there was the first

two wins did just nothing for me. Lisa Malden was, she was like a minus 3,000 favorite. She was like a minus 3,000. 3,500 favorite against Chelsea Hack. And we knew what the PFL was doing. They gave her the easiest possible road. And they basically have admitted as such.

Jenna Bishop was impressive, but I wasn't like, it wasn't the one that got me there. After seeing the Santos one, that got her on the list for me. So, yeah, it was a great year for her. 2025 is going to be super interesting for her. But yeah, she should be probably in everybody's top 10. Do you agree with that, Jed? I do.

I don't even have an issue if you ever in the top five. I have some issue. I think my top five in this one is, to me, feels like it should be ironclad that I got the five right. Obviously, subjective. But like in the other categories, if you disagree with me, I'm much less. I think the five that I have is correct. The thing I want to say is about Ditcha specifically, and then I want to speak about Casey, this was the time I most thought, who should we do?

a female of the year award instead. I do feel like Dichibov clearly would have been the runaway favorite for women's fighter of the year. We don't do that. And there are good reasons for that, but I really

wanted her to get flowers in a way that I just don't think she is going to this year because of how our awards are structured. And then to Casey, I just want to say, this is the most on-brand you've ever been. Because to not have Drickus DuPless C get an award,

We talked on a ranking show earlier where you were just like, yes, objectively beating Sean Strickland and Israel, this is very good. I still think he is bad at fighting, and so I do not respect him. And it's just like, I think pretty clearly, and most of us seem to agree based on the voting, five or six, whatever third place votes. This dude did the most impressive in-cage stuff of the year. And he's just like, nope, he looks weird. I don't support it, so it's the best. That is an ugly fighting. Yeah.

He's winning, but at what cost? He looks so gross doing it. Can I dispute your ironclad list briefly? You can. You got Marab at number five? I have Marab. So my five is the three that we've discussed. My number six is Al-Hanra Pantoja.

My number five is Marab. And I feel really, really good about that list. Here's my case against Marab. Henry Suhudo sucks, so that is nothing. That means about as much a Chelsea Hackett to me, frankly. I put Zerudor on that level. I put him on that level, the Chelsea Hacker and the Lindley-Somalism, if I'm being perfectly honest.

Yeah. That's a take to half. And O'Malley, 48, 47 O'Malley. So there you go. So I can't have my list. So there's no way for him. Those, I guess, are arguments. but so we're clear.

The thing I do have an issue, I was the only person to put Marab in the top five, and I get it. He has been awful as a champion. Everything he has said, he has PR'd this terribly. What he did in Cage, which is the primary of this,

this year, is he wail, I mean, not wailed because not Mara. He dominated Henry Suhudo in a way that basically no one ever has. He out-wrestled the Olympic gold medalist just put the wood to Henry Suhudo, a fighter who is good, even if he maybe sucks.

And then he, on mini-cards, 49-46th, the current champion. And narratively, AK, as a man who supports the narrative of Alex Pereira, he finally did it. He finally got the belt that people thought for years he deserved, that he did not get to have a chance at because his friend was. yes he has been awful as a champion you will not find a human being who will stand on a taller soapbox than i to rail against marab and his PR management but his in cage performances i do not think there are five people with better in cage results than marab this year well others disagreed uh Diego everybody did because I am the only one who voted for it yes Diego Lopez got some votes. Carl's Pratchez got some votes. Bala Muhammad got a vote. That's the head scratcher for me. Like he did win the bell, but one fight, one win. It's just kind of a tougher sell, but it's not my vote. But yeah, there are a lot of great nominees for Fighter of the Year. It's never a bad thing to have too

many names in play. This is obviously a two-horse race, but it's always nice to shine some light on some others. But before we wrap up this category and we wrap up the program, this is going to be an interesting award heading into 2025 because of what I just mentioned. There's so many names on this list that performed well, but didn't get over the hump in 2024 because of Tepore and Pereira. So I want all of us to give a quick prediction for Fighter of the Year in 2025. So AK, I want to start with you. Who's your pick for 2025? Fighter of the Year, if you had to take a guess right now. I decided to go big. I decided to go big.

I didn't want to be boring and say Padena or Toporia, who could both have big years ahead of them? No question. John Jones or Tom Assel, maybe if they end up fighting each other, who knows, they could make waves because see John Jones become fighter of the year again. Imagine that.

I almost went with like Tatiana Suarez. I was like, maybe she makes it to the Zhang fight. She'd be young, depends her title once. But I said, you know, if I'm going to swing big like that with Tatiana, there's an even bigger, like, target out there who is known for not initially being the most active fighter, someone who everyone thinks is going to win a title someday,

if not more than one. A guy who, when he debuted in the UFC, guys, almost, I think, one fighter of the year that year. Like, he was that impressive. Of course, I ain't talking about our submission of the year winner when Mr. Hamzat Shemayev. Now, this banks on Hamzat fighting at least twice. I don't think there's one win.

Like, I think he'd be like this bizarre. I think it's a fake rumor, but let's say by some bizarre chance he did go up and fight Alex Padena next. I think if he just beats Alex Padetta and then doesn't fight the rest of the year, that's really not enough to make him fighter the year.

But, but if by some chance, guys, he gets the DDP fight and if not Alex Padetta, like another fight at Led Heavyweight, like it makes moves towards 205. I'm going while. I think, I think, this man just needs to fight twice.

He just needs to fight twice. Like I said, every time he gets in there, it captures your imagination. So give me Hamza Shamaev as my pick for potential 2025 fighter beer. All right. Casey? I like it.

What's it to you? I want to be on brand and just say, Mano Cop. We're on Mano Cop's time this year. Oh, wow. I love Pantosia, but he had his run. It's Manel Cop's year. He finally, he showed up. This is it.

He's going to make weight two times. beat Pantosia and you'll, I don't know, beat Pantosia in the rematch. But I'm actually going to go with Shafkat Rukmanov. Ooh. He will come back from his MCL injury or whatever. He will beat Bala and then he will be, who would be next up after Blaw? I don't know if there's a career. Joaquin Bucle, baby.

Oh, that's right. Top five, fighter every year, Wachian Buckley. Yeah, so we'll go 2 and O, and it'll be, yeah, it'll be a great matchup, but I'm going Schofcott. I think he'll be my fire of the year in 2025. And then we head on over to Atlanta, Georgia, Jedmishu, who you got? So I made a list. I'm going to very quickly go through my top five with a shout out to Alex Pereira, who was number six. Not because I think he's going to have a big year, but because the last like four years,

if you just picked Alex Brera, you had a decent chance of being really close to correct. So maybe that magic run keeps on going for Poetan. My number five, Fire of the Year for 2025, Umar and Armagometov. We know that 3-11, he is fighting. I believe he is going to win the belt against Maraub Dalashvili. He will get one more title offensive. He gets two more. Ooh, buddy, we're cooking there.

Number five is Umar for me. Number four, I got to also be on brand. Valentina Shivchenko, she is going to defend against Menonfior at some point next year. If she gets another one and maybe, guys, just maybe that other one is, oh, I beat Manon. Aaron Blanchfield's got other. There's not a clear cut next contender because everybody else has kind of lost to Manal before this. Maybe Valentina says, okay, Kayla Harrison is the Bannamweight champion. Amanda Nunes, she's not quite ready to come out of retirement.

Let me go and get my second belt. She beats Kayla Harrison, Fighter of the Year Valentina Shipchenko. Number three is Lamakachev. I think he's going to beat Armand Saruky, and that fight is obviously very dangerous at 3-11. And then I believe he probably gets a welterweight fight later in the year, depending on what happens with Shavkat and Ball. I don't know if he ends up beating Shavkat.

But, I mean, we're talking about the pound-for-pound best fighter in the world, including in your top five list of possible fighter of the year. Seems like a fair bet for me. Number two, I've told you guys, 2025 I'm going to be optimistic. and I was shocked to hear A.K. say the name I was thinking, Tatiana Swara, she is going to make it to a fight, win a title finally by beating Wiley Zhang, and then she is going to have an injury-free 2025 and defend the belt twice and out of nowhere. A career we all rode off. She will be the comeback fighter of the year. She will be the champion, the dominant champion. She will win Friday of the year. But the number one person, the guy I'm putting all my money on. who I feel the best about, I'm the most on-branded human I've ever been. Guys, when we are here one year from now,

I am very excited for this show because we will all get together and we will watch E. Casey Leiden be forced to acknowledge that Drickus Duplice is a good fighter. He will cry, he will rip his hair out, the sleeves will already be ripped off,

and he will be so angry and befuddled to just say, I have to pick him because he beat Sean Strickland and he beat Hamsat Shemayev and he beat whoever the hell else comes up. I still don't get it, but he is the fighter of the year. And I cannot wait for that moment when my large idiot son just forces, forces EKC to be like, fine, you're good at fighting. This is going to be incredible. And then Casey just leaves him off the list off the principal.

In case he'd be like, what do I do with this guy? What do I do with him? GDP is my number six after that. If we had the top six, yeah, I would have, I'm sure. All right. I accept. Two things I want to say. One, if we're talking about being on brand,

then you know exactly where I'm going. And number two, this might be the manager to the stars Daniel Rubinstein's favorite award show of all time because now we're going to add a third fighter from his stable to the predictions because guys, I don't know if you know this or not, but Armand Sarukin is about to become the lightweight champion of the world. And I assume he will have at least one defense of that title because I'm going with Armin to beat the number one pound for palm fighter in the world to defeat the unbeatable guy. in the best division of the sport, one of the toughest divisions in all of sports. When we come on this show, this time next year, Armin Sarukian will be the unanimous fighter of the year for 2025. Let's go.

Wow. And that segues perfectly. And yes, how about that? What a year. Who would have guessed that I would have picked Armand Sarukin? Couldn't be me. Couldn't have guessed it. Daniel Rubenstein.

Damn, his powerful, the dungeon of doom of MMA could be. in 2024. Wow. EDP, Shafkat, Armand Sarukian. Damn. He's got Peter Yan. I mean, they just keep coming.

They just keep coming. Main event Rubenstein over at Ruby Sports. But this all segues perfectly into what is to come here at M.A. Fighting as we enjoy a little breather from UFC action. Of course, more year-end fun. We'll have a lot of prediction content heading into 2025, including just my favorite tufer of the year. the on to the next one predictions extravaganza coming up on the podcast network

AK and I will go through our picks from last year we'll see what we got right what we got wrong and then we'll have the live show the following week where we do our buy sell questions so make sure you get in there and submit your buy cell questions because there's just so many and it's the best we're going to have geninize BTL promotional and I guess organizational festivales coming up on the podcast network. So stay tuned for that. So just keep it locked to MMAfighting.com. And shout out to Casey, AK, and Jed. Thank you gentlemen very much for joining me to discuss these awards. And to all the viewers, listeners, and readers of MMAfighting.com. We appreciate you so much for sticking with us after all the craziness throughout the year.

2025 is going to be our year. There's no doubt about that. And the biggest reason why is because of all of you supporting us each and every day, each and every show means the world to us. So thank you again for that. And thank you for watching the MMA Fighting 2024 award show. Have a fantastic holiday season. A tremendous new year. And we will see you in 2025. It's the year of Armand Sarukian.

Bye, bye, bye, everybody. Love y'all. MNL cop. D. D. D. D. D. D. B. B. Rook, Roo. Oh. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network.