MMA Fighting - 2025 Year-End MMA Awards Spectacular | Knockout of the Year, Submission, More; Plus, WILD Controversy

Episode Date: December 25, 2025

The MMA world will remember 2025 for a number of crazy moments and breakout stars — as well as one of the most controversial voting moments in MMA awards history. Join the MMA Fighting staff as we look back at the biggest highs, surprises, and most unbelievable moments of 2025 in a special year-end retrospective. We’re honoring all the nights that defined a rollercoaster of a year this sport has seen in quite some time — and handing out plenty of hardware in celebration of the knockouts, submissions, fights, fighters, and breakthrough competitors who made sure 2025 was a year that will be remembered. This year, the categories seemed tougher than ever in regards to determining a winner, along with figuring out who belonged in the top-five overall. We invite you to stick around for the final award, which features controversy like never before in the history of MMA Fighting award shows. Check out MMA Fighting’s 2025 year-end award show above, hosted by our own Mike Heck and featuring a panel of Alexander K. Lee and Jed Meshew. Follow Mike Heck: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@m_heckjr⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Jed Meshew: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@JedKMeshew⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Alexander K. Lee: ⁠⁠@AlexanderKLee Subscribe:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ http://goo.gl/dYpsgH⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Check out our full video catalog: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://goo.gl/u8VvLi⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Visit our playlists:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ http://goo.gl/eFhsvM⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Like MMAF on Facebook: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://goo.gl/uhdg7Z⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow on Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://goo.gl/nOATUI⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Read More: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. All right, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to MMAFighting's 25 year-end award show. like heck thank you for joining us as we recap the very best the sport of mixed martial arts had to offer in 2025 and sort of set the bar for fighters heading into 2026 as always a wacky year in our sport a lot happened along the way and we celebrate not the good but the great from the year that was but let me assure you of something right here and now ladies and gentlemen as you watch as you listen for the first time since we started doing the show things at least some takes are

going to be probably chastised things might get a little heated maybe as heated as it's ever gotten on this award show the fighter of the year was all but decided but one person on our staff went against the bold in fact i'd be willing to bet a significant amount of money that this individual is probably the only person on planet Earth that didn't nominate this particular fighter for the fighter of the year. Did not even put this fighter in their top five. And because of this incredibly wild move,

it cost this fighter at least a share of the award, if not outright winning this award. And we are going to discuss this in wild take and more than likely not be very kind to the person who presented it. do not go anywhere award show history will be made right here on the 2025 m a fighting award show but speaking of the panel speaking of the the takers and the tastemakers let us introduce the panelist the co-host of the show as you get ready to give out some hardware first this man is the prince of positivity the man who carries the torch so to speak the man who organizes this whole thing

these award shows these awards for us he's our under the our MVP over at M-Afighting.com, without a doubt, the one and only, Alexander Cayley, repping the greatest website in the world, my best friend. Hello, AK. Hi, everybody. I'm going to do the whole show in that voice. Is that okay? I'm trying a new thing.

Is that Mickey? Is it goofy? Is it a combination of the two? I can't figure it out. I'm not familiar with those characters, so I'm not sure who you're talking about. That's an original creation of mine. What's up, my best word? Yeah, listen, it may be a little contentious today, not between us.

We're going to be very careful here because you have teased a segment later, which unfortunately I think may not involve the voter in question, but that's okay. We will let, you know, we will be respectful about it. We will certainly let the fans have, let their word be heard, but I'm looking forward to it. Other than that, I think we picked some fantastic winners this year, and this is a show about positivity I'm actually just really excited to go back and look at some of these amazing moments

we had in 2025 because you know we're always we do a lot of complaining we do a lot of criticizing of the UFC and of sometimes MMA in general but there's a reason we keep coming back to it when fight night rolls around you know magic happens and we had quite a bit of that this year I think well it's great to have you here

AK and let us say hello to that man right there he is Mr. No Gray area the hot take kid you might know him from BTL. You certainly know it from No Betzbarred and there is certainly not a fence for him to sit on. He just doesn't sit on any fences. He's from M.AFighting.com, the one and only Jed Bishu. Jed, how are you? Are you enjoying the holiday spirit? Are you enjoying award season? Oh, we got them wrong. That's my Mickey. Uh, we, there's one award that I, I, everything felt like around what I expected, even if maybe I didn't vote for, you know, the top spot as we get into stuff.

There is, even the award in question, this is what I expected. The outcome, I think, is what I anticipated. I did not think there would be as much momentum for the runner-up officially. But, yeah, had we done this award show yesterday, this would have probably been straight mean. Like, I have had 24 hours to basically just get over it. I was going to say come to terms of it, but I won't. I don't agree fundamentally. But yesterday I was a lot more heated about it.

So at least today, you know, as we get into it, it can be a little better. But yeah, there's that. And then the rest of it is, it's great. I'm rocking my PFL had today as a potential spoiler to one of the awards, maybe multiple of the awards handed out this year. You know, I love year-in lists. I love lists. I loved doing the voting.

I went back and I watched everything. Not every fight, but all of the stuff in our contenders grouping. We sort of made a pile. And I went back and I watched it. And I re-evaluated and I tried to give the best ballot I could. And I think we, broadly speaking, got everything about right. I might quibble with one or two things, but, you know, there's a reason that MMA fighting is a great website. It's because we get it right more often than not.

Well said. And I'm glad you said that because before we actually give away the first award and we'll do so in a couple of moments, I wanted to ask you both this question based on what Jed said, because you have both been a part of this awards panel voting for these awards for far longer than I have. This is the fifth time I have done this. And I think this is my 10th. 10, where are you at? I mean, it can't be more than eight. I guess eight would be as long as I've been with. This is either nine or 10 for me.

Can't be more than eight for me. But I want to start with you, AK, because, you know, usually there might be one, maybe two awards that are somewhat and even up to super competitive. But more often than not, it's pretty easy to pick a winner for a lot of this. of stuff. But it's always the hardest part of it is filling out the rest of the top five. That seems to be where most of our time is spent. This year, it seemed like every category was competitive. Every category was at least somewhat tough to call in some regard. Top to bottom, AK, over your eight or so years in doing this, is this the closest consistently you've seen these

awards top to bottom? And if not, can you compare it to any other year? People know I have the memory of a goldfish, Mike? Anyone that watched our prop quiz competition? Guys check that out on YouTube if you hasn't. I have a terrible, terrible memory when it comes to, like, one of a specific events, like what fights and which fighters, you know, appear on certain events. And also even year by year. Like, I have trouble recapping year by year.

Which is why I'm glad to do these, like, shows because I get to go back and look at this whole list. And I'm like, oh, everything sort of crystallizes in my mind. And I could have, you know, I can do the same thing for any year if you just show me a list. But I have a very bad memory of this sort of thing. Just talking about from what we saw, like just based on this year, Mike, yeah, you're right for sure. It did feel very broad.

It felt very wide. Voting is always interesting because there's sometimes like a difference in philosophy, especially when we're talking about finishes, say, like we're talking about CAO. We're talking about sub because sometimes you want to go with just the most aesthetically pleasing, which a lot of that can actually happen outside of the UFC. And then sometimes you want to go with, you know, the most meaningful, most impactful, which, let's be honest, the majority of that happens in the UFC. Right. So you want to find that balance between giving credit to, you know, non-UFC promotions, but also acknowledging that like, okay, well, this knockout is the one that millions of people saw. It has a certain, it has a real impact on, on, on the business. So it has to be recognized. So we'll see. I think I think we'll get into it. You guys understand what I'm talking about. If you've seen any of our previous years, you'll know, you'll see like, oh, wow, I'm surprised this knockout from like PFL ranked higher than this one from UFC, whatever, whatever. But, you know, we try and justify it. We try and make sense of it. And in the best moments, maybe shine a light, honestly, on some of these moments that some fans didn't get to see. So I think for me, variety is a good thing. I think the fact that we weren't necessarily unanimous on a lot of these lists is a good thing.

People will see the ballast MAPFling.com when all these awards go out. And you guys be able to see like, oh, wow. Like these votes are all over the place. And I think that's, I think that's a good quality to have. They'll actually be able to see them here as well. Oh. Jed, your thoughts on how, I guess, competitive the awards were compared to any of the years past you've been a part of? There was only one award that I knew before I walked in what it was, right?

Like, where I was like, as we were approaching the end of the year and I didn't have to be like, okay, I did. I went back and I watched it all, but I knew what I, what sub of the year was. I had no doubt about this in the same way that, like, we all knew last year that Max Holloway was getting knockout of the year. But that's the only award that I didn't at least have some consideration about what would be number one. And the rest of it was still competitive. In fact, I would actually argue that submission of the year, which is usually the most competitive category in my mind, was as competitive as any year ever outside of the runaway winner for it. I think A.Ks, you know, nailed it. It is, it's a tough balancing act. For me, the balancing act is always, what do we call of the year, right? What does this award mean? Because I think there are two reasonable interpretations. And one is an insular best, right? And that can include a lot of things that can include level of competition, et cetera, et cetera. But like, just what is the best thing that happens?

this year versus what is the most memorable. And that's always the other thing I try and strive to kind of weigh those two factions against each other because like the UFC 300, that's a great kale and it will live forever. When we think back on the year 2024, that's like the first thing we'll think of. I'm not sure that's true for all of our award sections for 2025, but is that even important? And so that's sort of the competing ideologies in my head as I was making. these determinations. And this year was pretty tricky. I am, like I said, at the top,

and we're talking about the soon-to-be-revealed controversy. I am not confident any of my choices are right, right? Like, I am super open to other interpretations and stuff. And so I am, I'm at least happy and comfortable with what we collectively have come to. I feel exactly the same way. So let's just get right into things, gentlemen. It is hardware time. We will begin things with, where are you? Why aren't you coming up?

I don't understand. Get in here. Get in here, little graphic. Get in here. Do it. It was there. It was there. I don't know where it was.

I guess we're just going to keep the graphic up here. And that's okay. That's okay. We'll just keep it generic. And that's totally fine. But we are going to do the fight of the year kicking things off in 2025 and there were a lot of good ones no doubt about it in our voting panel of six all voted all gave our thoughts for this award as well as the rest of these awards so six

people in total were part of the panel so without further ado here are the nominees for mhm a fighting's 2025 fight of the year joshua van versus brandon roival ufcc 317 max holloway versus Dustin Poirier 3, U.S.C. 318. Marab de Walsh-Willi versus Piotr-Yan 2, UFC 323. Nazim Sattikov versus Nicholas Mota, UFC Baku. Usmindermaga Madoff versus Paul Hughes won, PFL Dubai. All right, everybody. The 2025 fight of the year is,

we won't have a drum roll because I don't want to lose the sound of my voice but it is Joshua Van versus Brandon Royval at UFC 317 congratulations to them what a fight

and gentlemen and ladies gentlemen watching this a fight so good so compelling that Dana White and the UFC actually paid out more money yes not only did they did these two competitors win the fight of the night. Not only did Josh Van get his win bonus and a title shot from this,

Brandon Royval also got his win money from Dana White and the Brass. One of the rare three-round fights to earn that, to win this award. And as you can see, let's pull it up here. Here's how the voting worked out. Van Royval, the only fight that got two first-place votes from myself and the great Jose Young's. Number two, Usmaner-Baghameda versus Paul Hughes won. from pfl dubai in january we had a tie for third between holloway pori three at ufc three 18

and the sadikoff mota fights from ufc baku and number five is the last pay-per-view fight maybe ever marad wellis really versus peter yann at ufc 323 so jed let's start with you a lot of really good fights this was really tough to narrow down going through every month and some of the big fights that even happened in the first half of the year in the end are you happy with how it all turned out did we get this right i've no idea if we got it right this is the outcome i anticipated um i'll be honest i did not because of the other thing that happened i didn't really look at our breakdown here i did not realize how narrow the margin for van royval was as the winner because uh as you can see if you know when you looked on the ballots there i put it

as my number five and I that was a hard decision for me this was easily the most difficult category for me to make my selections on and for a considerable amount of time I left van Roy Val off of my ballot and then ultimately I was like I think that it would be a bad look to leave it off my ballot I think that enough people feel and it is a great fight I'm not trying to diminish it but for a very long time i had the contender series battle between luna martinetti and uh mark belogden which didn't even as a result make our are you know honorable mentions since nobody voted for it that was my number five and then ultimately i was like i'm pretty sure van roi vall is going to win and it's a it's a more meaningful fight than the contender

series battle certainly and it's a very good one uh and so i am shut black had i done that then maybe it doesn't. Maybe we're talking Oussman-Nermagrimatur v. Paul Hughes won. It is, this was a much more narrow competition than I envisioned because it felt like this fight had the momentum, if that makes sense. Because, you know, spoiler alert, Josh Van had a tremendous year, but the way he won the title kind of works against him. But, you know, this can sort of be a fete of that accomplishment. And, you know, they threw 400 punches in 15 minutes or whatever insane thing they did. And so this is a totally fine selection. But I also think any of the others would have been equally as fine. This was a very competitive year in this category. A.K., Jed had this fight at number

five. You didn't have this on your list at all. And I'm a little surprised by this, but it's not wrong because like jed said and kind of the narrative throughout this is there this is a very competitive year for fight of the year your reaction to this fight winning it and your decision to not even put it in your top five this list is bull crap shut it down shut it what are we doing we're already off to we're already off to the to a terrible start you at least got four of the five right okay i only have two of my uh no i only have three i'll love you also oh you have three that's right uh i'll break down a second uh dear me also left this one off but i think as jad kind of broke down it shows you how close this list could have

been because here are some other ones i left off van roi val i also left off sadakov mota which was an amazing fight so that made our top five amazing amazing fight um you guys see the breakdown but ones i really want to point out uh kevin holland down rodriguez was a great fight the first mara like i was very close to putting two marab fights on here like i love marab um and i am wondering is it just because it happened so long ago that i'm forgetting also i think definitively for me the Yan Marab fight was maybe was gets the edge so I'm like okay I know I have to put the Yan Marab fight on it wasn't a battle between those two like definitely the Yan Marab one is better I think so that you know Umar's ended up getting cut off um Duncan Rabetski was one of the

most fun fights of the year like there's so many there's so many good fights that could have taken my fifth spot fourth spot honestly the bottom three actually even say from three to five on my list all those I mentioned you could have shuffled one of those in there including van Raubal and and not felt bad about it so um I'm glad at one i'm glad at one i do think this is a pretty strong consensus among um the mma community in general as far as i can see and you never want to go against the consensus guys um so we'll see we'll see how much of an issue this creates later uh so yeah it it just shows how many really really really good flights this year and i i until jett mentioned it i totally

forgot that we didn't have the contender series fight with um luna martin did did make it on the list almost my number five yeah same almost made my number four i swapped it out yeah some really good ones here I want to say, I do have a bone to pick with one of you, but we can come to that at the end of this section. I want to say that, because I didn't say this when I was going, and it sort of crystallized as you were talking, A.K., I think this was one of the two best fights of the year. My list, as you is kind of reflected by it, and if you know me at all, if you watch any of our content, you probably parse this out. my list was mostly the fights I had the most fun watching and you know

like maybe they won't stand the test of time but you know they were just a great like they might not have been excellent displays of martial arts but they were incredibly fun and there was some good martial arts going the Reval van fight and the Usman

Armagometov are one and two I think those were the two best all around competitive performances right of like high level skill meets the moment moment. They're the best quote unquote fights. And so in that regard, I certainly feel very comfortable with what we've settled. Yeah. And it's again, I mean, just, just, just kind of

looking at everything. Five points separated first and second, 10 points separated fifth and first. That is a very, very close race. 32 points winning an award. That is a pretty low score. Compared to things I've seen in the past. All five of the top five got first place votes. Again, that's something that doesn't happen in a lot of these awards that we give away. So super competitive year for fights. Did anything, and I'll just throw it out in whoever wants to answer can answer, just kind of looking at the list and looking at how this play out. Did anything surprise either of you guys?

I would have liked to have seen EBO versus, or EWO versus EBO as they sneak in there. And it almost did. Again, if you want to see the breakdown, literally one vote away, third or one fifth place vote away from quite cracklin top five again i don't know what i would take off i certainly wouldn't take off um yon morob too that's you'd take off sotikov or van roi vol yeah i know i know and and satacob moda is a great fight like i mean like if you want it because that one satacov mode went three that went the distance right yes yeah so you got a little more a bank you got a little more more no someone finished someone i have to remember you can see why i didn't

see why i didn't make my list yeah i think was the second round knockout for seven Let me just double check. Yes, right hook, round two, in the final minute of round two. Yeah, so maybe people got a little more action there, but boy, I mean, pound for pound, that Ewo, Ebo fight was just so insane. Recency bias for sure.

Like, I think I'm just still high off it. The fumes are still wafting into my brain. So that's why I would have liked to see that make it. But other than that, I don't know. I don't know there's any huge gaps here. Maybe Yeri. I feel like I have to look at the rest of our list. Did Yeri, I feel like Yeri got a lot of honor.

honorable mentions this year but you had two fights that were up for fight of the year yeah he also had a very good like i don't he didn't make our fighter of the year spoiler did not make our fighter of the year like honorable mentions but honestly you could have had him on don't you worry he's on all violence he's gonna be just fine so yeah it's kind of weird to see uh yri not in the top five here and you certainly could have made a space for um uh year in jamaul hill uh other than that i again i think this really i'm really glad sadaakov and moda got in there because i do i worry that when we get forgotten as obviously I did so I'm glad I made it that's the one I'm the most surprised by um not that it's bad just that like I look at the rest of the names involved these are all

extremely famous important fighters and then there's sadikov and moda who you know no disrespect they're not your prehashka and jamal hill former heavy heavyweight champions they're not even i i was honestly a little surprised though even i didn't vote for it and i i didn't vote for it basically Basically, because as I was building my list, I was like, I'm mostly just going to do the things that I had fun with. But, you know, I'll throw in some here are high-level fights. I'm a little surprised at Volusch really never met himad of. Maybe it's just because it was in January and that's such a time gap. But like, that's almost certainly a better fight than Sadakov-Mota, like a higher-level quality back-and-forth affair.

And so I am a little surprised that made it in because like Sada Kov-Moto, I'm not surprised that Ebo versus Ewo didn't despite me voting for it because it lasted 90 seconds and that that does really hurt you in these fights, right? Like it's, that was an insane chaotic 90 seconds. But Joshman and Brenner-Rovall went 15 minutes doing that basically. So a couple of those surprised me. Did anything surprise you, Mike? Because I have a grievance that needs to be addressed after we get to you.

talking about what may have surprised you what may have surprised me it definitely surprised me is i was going to go with barabubar and then i i'm the only one who voted for jdm versus belal like i'm really surprised by that i thought that was going to get a lot more votes in fact when that fight was over i was actually pretty confident that that would be in the top three at the end of the year no matter what happens honestly i really thought it was going to be up there i understand that taste may vary i was actually a little stunned i was the only one to vote at all that fight. And that was my number two fight of the year. And then

we'll get to Jed's grievance in a moment. But if you guys missed it, honorable mentions as AK said, the incredible Evo versus Ebo fight from UFC 323. UFC 323, two big ones for sure. Diego Lopez versus John Silva and Noche, UFC.

Uri Barashka, Jamal Hill, UFC 311. Great fight. Tiago Golarte versus Leonardo Mosquita from Thunder Fight 47. It's quite fun. Can we talk about that for a second? Yes.

This is not past the bar for notability. This is what we're talking when we talk about notability versus, you know, fights that are just like regional stuff that happens that it's just truly insane. It really should be a separate list. You guys know, you guys, people who keep up within this fist knows, you know, we keep it on in this stuff and that's really where it gets

its flowers. But, but I will just tell people, go find this. Of course, the great Kaposa, the great Kabaka Hitman on Twitter, put the whole thing, the 90 seconds of glory, on incredibly insane stuff um so yeah i i totally fell in love with that fight i understand people leaving it off completely if you guys if you want you know if anyone dismiss it as just

like while this happens on the regional level all the time somewhat true but i think again even for a regional level fight this was just crazy this is just quite insane absolutely wild very fun we mentioned jdm ball from ufccd 15 which jdm wins the welterway title holl and drod incredibly funny and fun and all the fun and funny synonyms you could possibly use. Rob Umar, UFC 311. I actually thought that would end up

a little bit higher on the list, all things considered. And then we had the incredible lightweight apex battles from the same event. Esteban Rievich versus Elvis Brenner and then Chris Duncan versus Batush Rebekchi rounded out. And Jed, what is your grievance? Throw it out there.

Let's discuss this. My grievance isn't Yuri Perashka, though part of me is like I think you guys I think everybody is forgetting who Yuri freaking Prakashka is as one of the most exciting fighters who've ever lived he had two great fights

and we'll talk in a future award we're giving other fighters credit for multiple fights in one category we couldn't have juiced him up a little bit feels wrong to me but my true grievance is with you Mike Mike heck

let's go what what are we doing I know I'm not your best friend your best friend's right there he's on the other side of me on the camera I get that we're friends we have a rapport we have a connection Mike

and you and I sat in your command center and laughed our asses off watching Kevin Holland and Danny Rodriguez fight at the time we called it

the spiritual successor to Kimbo versus Dada a fight I have in complete earnestness argued as one of the five best fights in the history of this sport and it's not on your list what are we doing Mike

how is that going to be lost to the sands of time and not enshrined forever this is on you buddy and I don't care for it so I mean this is a very easy answer just because it's not enshrined on ludicryst that you put Sadikov Moda over this masterpiece of a bout

see here's here's the best part about all of this stuff is that I can go back and rewatch it all because you could take, especially with the watch party fights, you could take the emotion out of it by just rewatching it. And believe me, rewatching Kevin Holland, D. Rod, I had a good time. It's so fun.

But it is not the same as watching it with somebody else who shares the same enthusiasm. It doesn't hit as well watching it by yourself and with commentary on. Like, it's fun but it is not the same feeling of and let's throw this out

there too, Jed. Part of my hilarity of this all was because of you. Like, the fight was part of it, but your reaction was one. Also, this is the restart of the climb after you lost at a big way because of Daniel Zellhuber losing to Michael Johnson. So like, you were, that was a tough back-to-back moment for me. Most of my laughing was you talking about this fight and maybe ending the next stage of the climb before it even started. So like, there was a lot of other things I went into it and then after rewatching these fights I just couldn't put it on the list but where it matters yet is right here it matters right here it is entrenched in history right here and if there's a late night and I can't get some sleep I might just throw that on to get a good

giggle before I fall asleep that's it's it's the funniest fight of the year the biggest snub of 2025 it's I know it isn't no it isn't I genuinely had this as my number one fight for most of my ballot before I was like, I don't think that that's reasonable. This is easily the fight I will remember the most from this year. And by far, the most fun I had watching fist fights in 2025, not even close. Yeah. And I will weigh fun in a lot of respects. No doubt about it. That's why it's not my number one is I couldn't exclusively wait it on fun, but it was number two because boy, was it fun. Yeah. And I think honestly, the fight is much fun as I had watching D. Rod in Holland, I think the fight that I had,

actually had the most fun with was Yuri Khalil like I really enjoyed that but incredibly fun but it was mostly like the third round that was really fun like Yuri's just always funny such a just an interesting cat but like if you go back and watch the first round like the thing that stood out to me is like is Yuri hurt is his knee injured what is happening and then it told it tells this like it tells this story throughout the fight and then he just goes full Yuri in round three so I I wouldn't put it on my list, but like that was the fight I probably enjoyed watching the most. And obviously, Dron Holland's up there as well for different reasons. But yeah, it was a fun, it was a fun year to go back and rewatch fistfights.

A.K., you look like you're about to say a whole lot of stuff. Oh, I just want to say, I just saw, I just noticed something on the graphic that I messed up. And I almost destroyed our whole show before it even started. If you look at the graphic, Mike, you'll see I put two. But luckily, luckily, thank goodness it didn't matter. Yeah. So for anyone who sees the graphic and then kind of double, they go like, oh, well, there are two sevens on Mike. list. How is the top five correct? I went back. I just checked Mike's ballot. Thankfully,

near Megamette Hughes one was your five, not your seven. Thus, it would still have 25 points and still be in second place. So everything is fine. I will, I will have to, I will have to correct that, I think, hopefully before that post goes out. But, uh, oh, my, I had a little heart attack there. I was like, oh my gosh, did I? That would have been legitimately comeback of the year. Because if it had gone the other way, uh, would it have made it? Oh, yeah, it would have Then we're at a tie. Ewo versus Ebo would have been tied for fifth. So, tied for, yeah, tied for fifth.

So, no, no issue. Everything's good, guys. Yes, you do see an error on the graphic. No, no, no. Do it wrong. So that way, Ebo versus Ewo can be tied for fifth. It should be on the list. It should be on the list.

But no, this is, the order is correct. The order is correct. So I guess the math is a little off because of me, but the order is great. Well, I mean, drama already. Great starts of the festivities. That was the 2025 fight of the year award. Congratulations to Joshua Van, the UFC Flyway Champion, and Brandon Royval. I have a feeling both those guys will be nominated in future years as well.

I feel like Brandon Royvile is always nominated. And Josh Van is just 24 and has 716 fights already under his record. It's had three more since we started this. I know. Unbelievable. Absolutely unbelievable. We are far from done, including, again, don't go anywhere. The most contentious award in voting in M&B Fighting Awards history.

Even though I've been here for five years, I think this might be the most contentious award ever. And we'll reveal, we will discuss that. In my almost 10 years, I'm confident in saying, yes, that is an accurate assessment. Yes. But now we head to the world of Juzitsu. We head to the submission game. It is time to award the 2025 MMA fighting submission of the year. And here we are, ladies and gentlemen, the nominees for this prestigious award.

Costello von Steenis over Johnny Eblen at PFL Africa. Kayla Harrison, over Giuliana Pena at UFC 316. Sean Brady over Leon Edwards at UFC London. Walter Walker, three consecutive heel-hook submission victories. John Silva, over Bryce Mitchell at UFC 314. heck of a crop of nominees right there but there can only be one winner the 2025 submission of the year winner is

drum roll please Where are you at PFL Nation it is Costello von Stetus for his shocking middleweight championship winning fifth round submission of Johnny Eblen at PFL Africa also one thing missing from this which I'm gonna pull up at

second. I want to shout out Jake Pilla with the reverse kneebar lockdown thing from combat FC. Shout out New England regional MMA. Jake Pilla was tied for fifth on this list as well. And I'm going to pull up the entire graphic right now. So you guys can all check it out. There you have it. But four first place votes for Costello von Steenis. The other first place votes pretty shocking, honestly, Guillermo Cruz going outside of the UFC's Octagon going to Octagon the promotion with Henrique Maguera tapping Eriglint Prisreni at Octagon 80 with an inverted triangle, maybe even more shocking to be Kayla Harrison getting a first place vote for her submission of Julieta Pena at UFC 316. And Mike, were it not for that first place vote, your boy,

Mr. Pilla, would have the fifth place spot all to himself. So that is almost an egregious first place vote. But again, we'll get to more egregiousness later. Make sure that out to Guido for the inverted triangle. I mean, that was crazy. I wish I could have found a spot front on my list. I'm looking at it now. I just don't see who I could have bumped off. I feel very strongly with my top five.

Again, if I was going to go regional, I think the pillow one was just so crazy. I just don't think I'd seen that before in an MMA fight. Maybe I just don't remember. But the Medriara, the Toby Amada homage was absolutely fantastic. The only, I think the only item on our ballots to get a first place, place vote and not end up in the top five. So kind of, kind of interesting there.

And, Jed, I want to throw it to you. I want to say, I'm trying to think how many guesses when I've had to give you at the end of 224, if I was going to say, who do you think will win the 2025 submission of the year? Like, if I'd given you two. Oh, at the end of 2024? Yeah, yeah. If I'd give you 200 guesses, like name. I wouldn't have been, I wouldn't have been close.

400. Nope. a thousand have i given you a thousand guesses would you have landed on castillo i would have gotten in a thousand because at that point i would have named everybody on ufc roster and pfl roster so i would have gotten it but it's in that range you would need close to a thousand guesses to have gotten yeah i never would have pulled this out i also do just very briefly want to say y'all have buried the lead because the graphic is terrific um for our number two finisher but yeah man this was i said at the start of this right um there was one award i knew

what i was doing i knew what was going to win i am honest to goodness shocked it was not a unanimous consensus number one pick uh the you know at least the maduro pristine anyone is cool um i think that that's an incorrect choice but it is at least cool uh I don't, sure, Kayla Harrison did submit Juliana Pena. I guess that's the number one pick for some people. But like this is very obviously the most significant, the coolest one. No, it's not a flashy, flying, mighty whizbar or whatever. But it is an incredible game-saving, title-changing comeback win.

Costello Von Steen is, despite having competed admirably against Johnny Eublin, was on his way to losing. that fight he was seconds away from losing that fight and at the time it happened you know we were like oh my what oh whoa it's over he did it it was an incredible thing and like if this happened for knockout if somebody hit a knockout like this in a significant fight this was not random pfl mayna a two and one guy versus an oh and two guy like this was the champion the NFL champion losing on a last second submission, his first career loss. Like, this was a runaway winner.

The only thing we got wrong in this is that not everybody put it at the top. And those people are wrong, straight up, just wrong. But, you know, it didn't matter because, you know, this isn't like the other, this isn't like fighter of the year where 30 points got you to the win. This is a clear, clear winner. Yeah, AK, I mean, honestly, I thought if, if there was going to be a unanimous, shout, it was this one. Were you surprised it was, it wasn't unanimous? I mean, there were some cool submissions and oftentimes we could take a little deeper for submissions more so than knockouts,

but I thought this was like Jed said, I thought this is kind of a no-braider to be the unanimous consensus like all in number one. I mean, the right guy won and he won to buy a lot, but I'm surprised there was even a fourth or a fifth place vote on this submission. Yeah, yeah, I am a little surprised. Because when I had to, happened we just said like well this is locked down like uh when did when was this this was in uh july so there's still a lot of uh mma to go we were we were still like well that's it nothing's going to top that we're like we have no idea how anything's going to top that this is crazy and it's not like custella vancinas is not a submission guy like the guy has several

submissions on his resume i think more submissions than knockouts so but but against johnny eblin that just wasn't how we thought he was going to win it um because we i don't know if we if you were predicting vancinas to win i don't think you necessarily had to go to the puncher's chance route um maybe you thought you know he could have won a 48 47 decision but he was an under considerable underdog as jed said was pretty clearly losing the fight going to the fifth round like he was wearing eblen down he had won i think won the fourth or won one of the rounds before like there were moments where like oh wow veneas is kind of wearing him down but all ebblin really has to do is kind of grind out this last route and he'll be fine it's

going to retain his title and that's not what happened we got a surprise intermission such a i mean ebblin had to reach down deep too it's not like he was fresh as a daisy Sorry, Vastina just to say. So it was, it was an awesome moment. Great moment for a veteran, like guy that's just kind of been around for a bit, you know, came in with a bit of hype, maybe didn't live up to it at first. But, I mean, beating Evelyn, who we've been pretty high on and then made fighting rankings. Like, that's a big deal.

So, yeah, I'd love to see that up there. But with submission, again, there is always a lot of, quite a bit of variance, usually. And I get, like I said, sometimes people will favor those crazy exotic submissions like Medueras that happened on the regional scene. So I understand. Again, would I put that over such an impactful moment? I would not personally. So, yes, I am a little surprised, Mike.

I also wanted to, oh, my gosh, what was it that I wanted to mention? Wow, it was in my brain and it just totally went out the window. I will pass it on to you back back to you, Mike. Yeah, I totally forgot. I had some last point I wanted to make it back to say this. We'll get there. I feel we'll get there. But just looking, going back and sort of looking at the graphic, Volter Walker's versus legs.

Yeah. Balderwarkers, a trio of heel hooks comes in at number two. Terrific. John Silva choking the life out of Bryce Mitchell and number three. Sean Brady, subbing former champion Leon Edwards in the main event of UFC London. Took that fight on short notice. Comes at number four.

We mentioned the tie for fifth. And Jed, you had two submissions as honorable mentions. And I want to give you the floor to shout those out because, again, sometimes you go off, if there's one of where we go off the board on, It's this one. And you had two of them. Jose also had two, but they were both UFC submissions. You had two that were a little outside the dorm.

Care to shout those out. Yeah, they're awesome. Submission of the year is always the category where you can have the most sort of variety because the truth is the regional scene is open to more weird stuff happening. Like I don't really know how else to put it that way. Even though one of these isn't actually regional was pfl um you know and it's it's hard to be like the best ko of the year was a flying scissor

ninja kick but it's a little easier to be like i've never seen the peela johnson knee bar literally never seen that happen in competition that's like a nonsense gym move and so it's like yeah i'm going to put that on and these other two i feel that way about um the bad ardeen yoshita fight that is um hold on i've got it up here that was a gladiator in january it's a leg scissor if you don't know what a leg scissor is it's it's a leg scissor you you choke somebody out with your legs around their neck um like a rear naked choke with your legs essentially it is a cartoon thing and if there's a leg scissor i'm going to put it in my list that's just going to happen and so i felt very happy putting that there and then uh hadley matthos was at a

pfl and it was a scottish twister and what a strange strange world we are in boys and girls where i am the only person voting for a twister i've been voting long enough to be like oh my god someone landed a twister and this wasn't a twister at gladiator this wasn't a twister rumble on the rock or like octagon not even the good octagon the other octagon this was a twister in the pfl and people are just like eh whatever let's go with the he choked out Bryce Mitchell like that's nonsense

yeah that was aesthetically cool but like he got front he got ninja choke man this is a twister in a real fight so I feel confident with my list frankly yeah Jed but have you ever seen Julian Pania gets submitted by Kayla Harrison I mean

yeah uh obviously that's by far the most degree it's inclusion here And yeah, you know, if that wasn't number one, that at least, though, was meaningful. Like John Silver tapping Bryce Mitchell wasn't meaningful. I was just like, oh, we all were happy. That filled a shot in Freudy need, but that's not like remotely in my top 10 list of reasons I would put something on a list. I mean, for me, I had that in my top three because of like the bill to it, everything about that whole John Silva, Bryce Mitchell thing.

It lasted for months. And then it called the name with that moment. No, I know. It was sick. It was sick. I actually forgot the Jay Cadley thing happened until I saw the graphic. I was like, I was like, this is the world we live in. The NFL had its moment, Mike.

Yeah. It had its moment. It got number one. I love, I love Jedd's list, by the way. I really like Jed's list on the reverse, AK, you had all five. You were the only one to have five in your top five. I know what the people want. Yeah.

I mean, but you were the only, you only get five votes and all five of your votes were in the top. And the one you missed was Harrison Pena. So if you were going to miss one, that's the one in my,

yeah. The only reason I had Harrison Pena and as my number five was because going back and rewatching it, I still don't know how it happened. Like it just came out of nowhere. We're like,

all right, we're going to the next round. We're just like, oh shit, it's over. That was the quickest thing I've ever seen. Anything you want to point out about your top five,

AK. No, I just remembered what I was going to say before. Okay. I didn't know what I was saying before. Because we talk about sometimes, oh, I can't believe this wasn't unanimous number one. I am responsible for maybe the most controversial, non-unanimous number one in MAF fighting history. I think this was my first year with the site. We had a much larger staff back then.

So just looking back, this is 2017. Mike, you brought up the Mighty Whiz Bar, considered by May to be maybe the greatest submission of all time. And certainly the wide consensus, number one. number one submission that year i didn't think so uh okay i didn't realize this that is in fact the worst take anyone's ever had listen we had a hold on first of all this crazy we had a 15 person so this makes it even more egregious because we had a 15 person panel back then so even even even you know greater chance that like someone could go off board uh but no 14 of 14 sorry 14 of the 15 number one this including great people like esther lynn was on this ballot

Dave Meltzer? I don't know. Dave Meltzer was with us. Mark Romani. Luke Thomas was on this ballot. And the man who was never forgiven me for not giving a number one vote, Shaheen El Shadi. He was not happy in the moment. And to this day, it's like, I still. Dude, this is such a bad ballot from you. Listen, that Brett John's, uh, calf slicer, that's how memorable it was. I almost forgot what it was. That Brett John's cast slicer was a thing of beauty. Calf Slicers rule, arm bars or whatever. So I'm just going back. I'm just saying that I, I'm not apologized.

I will not apologize. I stand by it. Brett Johns, Juan Soto. Juan Soto? Who was it even? One Soto is a baseball player. I'm just saying Brett Johns might have, might have castellated him in his day. Joe Soto.

Joe Soto. That's what I'm looking for. This is a great commission. This is wild. I mean, just a wild. take and there is a part of me that is slightly disappointed and there is a part of me that when jed said this is the worst take of all time i actually thought it might be but i will give you a little bit of grace here okay because at least the right fighter one yes and he did have it as number two i will

say okay you justly put it as number two i mean it was it was okay it was a distant second but it made my ballot like yes it was number two but it's still a bad look it up bret johns not Juan Soto Joe Soto You know what you don't have to look up You don't have to look up Demetrius Johnson Throwing a man in the air And going for a

So called MMA media Is trying to teach you out of Oh you have to vote this number one No guys I have my own opinions About things okay I have my own opinions As do many people on this staff As you'll see

As you'll see Can I was doing a bit of looking Into some past things as well We should also throw out that as bad as that is, and I do believe it's worse. Arguably, Casey was worse last year. Casey did not even rank Hamzaa Chimaev versus Robert Whitaker,

which was otherwise our unanimous number one. Didn't even have it in his top five. He chose Islamachia versus Dustin Poyer, which was our number two. But yeah, so that's arguably worse because he didn't even rank it. But I still think I think you're always. is worth. Thank you. Stand by. I'll never apologize. Casey might be the bronze medalist of this of this conversation. I actually had I had Fluffy Hernandez at number two because it was such a it was such a humiliating choke

from Fluffy against Roman Delizzee. And I was trying to like I was at a family party on Saturday and my nephew was talking to me about fighting. He just got into the sport the last couple of years. And you know, he watches the pay-per-views and stuff like that. he has watched every apex card. And I'm like, did you see the Fluffy Hernandez Roman Delizze fight? And he goes, no. I'm like, that is your homework. Because not only that fight into the most bullish way, the words I actually used to describe

this fight to him was that was the closest thing to legalize torture I've ever seen in a fist fight. Like, I've never seen a man who wanted to escape a cage so badly, but couldn't. And Fluffy was just eating his food and enjoying every morsel and then decided at one point. All right, I'm full. And I'm just going to end this and just throw the plate out the freaking window. That submission stood out to be so much because of like the humiliation that he gave to one man. It was just unbelievable. And he could have done that at any point in the fight. He just chose one moment to do it. Rest of the honorable mentions. Rob DeWall is really

tapping shot O'Malley UFC 316 to retain the bantamweight title. Pretty good year for submissions note about it. And this is just a pretty fun list. We sort of touched on everything else that happened and submissions are always fun jed uh two things here first i am really happy that pillow johnson made it on um i didn't know if it would because like well i am often extremely willing as you can see from the ballot to uh put you know regional stuff like a lot of it usually i i feel in the many years of doing this most people save like one spot for something kooky and they're trying sort of go middle of the road for a lot of the rest of

their picks. And so like maybe Pilla Johnson isn't the kooky one that gets in. It obviously was this year and I'm glad I think that is unique and cool, right? Like it was my number two because I've literally never seen it happened in a actual fist fight.

But the other thing, we just gave this short shrift and I think we should have, we mentioned it, but acknowledging what Volta Walker is doing is pretty insane. And we had a brief discussion about it before the votes of like, can we just

put Mike, I think you first said it as like a throwaway joke on air. I'm like I just put Walter Walter Walker for three heel hooks. And they're like honestly, why not? Because it's now four in a row, even though one was last year, right? But like three heel hooks

in one year is this is a statistical anomaly. That's the type of question that will come on prop quiz one day, a decade into the future, how many heel hooks in a row did Volta Valker get? And it's just a really cool thing. And I'm glad that we gave it its spot. And I didn't want us to breeze past it because it felt like maybe we were with so many other things to talk about.

And I think that sets a good precedent too. Because let's say in the future, let's say someone gets two spinning, you know, roundhouse kick knockouts in the same year. And we're like, oh, well, we can't pick one. We're like, you know what? So and so versus physics. Like that will be our, right? That will be. and we'll look good so this is our first time doing this i'm pretty sure and i don't think the last time i think

this is something we should consider going forward it's definitely the first time we've done it specifically there are i will be transparent there have been other years where i have graded one performance maybe a little better because of other performances that year um but others should do like the oscars should do this screw giving out a best actor for one movie give out best actor for for the slate you produced in 2025. Let's see how it goes then. I'm all on board with this new methodology. I think there is some,

I think like Screen Actors Guild Awards. One of the awards does it and it might be SAG. Yeah, which is smart. That is a smart thing. I want to add in, I'm glad Brady v. Edwards made the list. It's kind of weird because if you look at it, it's the only one of our top four.

It didn't get higher than fourth on anyone's ballot. So I guess it landed technically in the perfect spot. but it was not it didn't it's like it didn't no one put it in their top three no one was like oh my gosh it looks like it had like it had to be included it was probably borderline for a lot of us but i feel like it's going to be forgotten because what happened after with brady you know and now he's probably out of the contender line for a while because of how wellterwey's moved along but like that was a real moment for him like that was a real moment for sean brady also a real on the other side kind of a real moment for for leon edwards right it almost feels like that's like

the beginning of the end for him even though he because then he had another loss after So I hope I'm glad Brady gets to shine. I hope people look back on this someday and be like, oh, crazy. He was the first guy ever to submit Leon Edwards. Why do we not talk about this guy more? And it's like, yeah, listen, it happens. He may never fight for a title. Maybe he's not one of the top three.

It was never one of the top three or four welterweights in the world. I don't know. You could say he was after this win. But he deserves his flowers. He deserves his flowers. I feel like the Brady run he was on there is going to get forgotten. That's a great point. I think if there was a performance of the year category,

strong argument that he's in the top five. Yes, he certainly has a compelling case for something like that. Yeah, it was a great submission, great performance from Sean Brady. But guys, we're about to pour some out, pour some out for the rookie of the year category because the breakthrough fighter of the year category could not be more back. In fact, it's returning for the first time since 2012. 2020 for the first time since Hamzat Shemayev won the award over Kevin Holland and people lost their damn minds. Ladies and gentlemen, for the first time in five years.

Let's check out the nominees for M.A. Fighting's Breakthrough Fighter of the Year. Waldo Cortez Acosta. Joshua Van. Fad G. Walter Walker, Kevin Vallejos. All right, and the 2025 breakthrough fighter of the year for MMAFighting.com is the brand new UFC flyweight champion, Joshua Van. Congratulations to Josh Van from unranked to world champion.

The fearless one gets it done. And let's pull up the bracket. for everybody to see four first place votes for josh van two first place votes for our second place vote getter salsa boy himself the MVP of the m a fantasy league waldo cortez o costa uh one of those votes was behind i don't think of very surprised by that i had van at second ghee leaves josh van off all together which is surprising and that's not even takes of the year and that is not even the contentious thing i've been teasing throughout this but if it was i think people wouldn't be surprised because again this choice did not cost josh van the award but it almost did

because damon is the only one not putting waldo cortez costa on the list which is absolutely wild to me i'm actually i'm actually a little i'm a little fired up about that one jett i can't lie i didn't think i will be i didn't think i would be this mad about it um it's Damon's list isn't very good. God love Chris Duncan. How is Waldo Cortez-A-Cost and not in the top two? I don't, I can't, Chris Duncan probably shouldn't be in the top 10, much less the top five. Can we, can we talk about the, you know, Mike, you mentioned this is us bringing back this award.

Yes. I believe it was Shaheen Al-Shadi once in a time who wanted to get rid of the award. I just blame everything. I'm pretty sure you are correct on this, actually. Because I think the problem was the criteria is a little murky. It is a little murky. Like we started going with, we started going with a rookie, which was just, you know, a fighter to make a, you know,

literally fight for the first time in a major promotion. Usually we were talking about UFC or Belator and I think later, PFL. But the results there started getting kind of, with respect to the winners, not interesting. I point to, and I'm sure there's other examples, we had one year where like, you know, Casey O'Neill won. Casey Neal, great rookie here.

I don't want to take away. from what what case you know she's kind of fallen out of the spotlight obviously some it gives a loss there some injury problems she was a very good choice for rookie the year but i remember picking her and i just being like when you're talking about year-end storylines i remember her winning that award and just being like this is not i like casey o'neal that was not one of the storylines of 2025 for me you know what i mean so i felt like rookie is not representing um what these awards supposed to be which is supposed to be some sort of summary some sort of, you know, picking the biggest moments of a certain year, right?

And I just felt rookie, you'd stop hitting that. So I said, let's go back to the broader breakthrough. And unfortunately, like, the reason, you know, was kind of living the first place is we could never fully agree, I think, always on what it meant to be a breakthrough, which is why there's that Hamzot, Kevin Holland controversy. I think Kevin Holland was a genuine rookie that year, right? That was like the year that Hamzaat won. It was Kevin Holland's UFC debut year.

Is that why there was the, no. No. No. That was his, that was his five. that was his four and oh year that was when he was up for i see but again he was people liked him people knew of him but that year like because of something jett and i talk about all the time you become a star in the sport by fighting a lot and kevin fought a lot that year but people knew who kevin was yeah no one outside a caposa and mr and mrs shemayev had any idea who hamzaa

Shemayev was until he walked on to fight island it went bananas that's age well that take us age well I say that take that age well uh okay you and I are are the geniuses Mike I believe you actually uh gave it to Holland that year so and that's okay he Mike also had Hamzada's number two okay that take age super well yeah uh I will I'm glad we got rid of rookie I always I was against rookie from the beginning and there's also perhaps a part where I'm to blame for rookie happening anyway because in 2021, I believe me and Shaheen had a, I won't say a heated argument, but a prolonged argument where I genuinely was arguing for Kamar Usman to win breakout fighter of 2021 because like he went from being a champion

no one cared about to, you know, is he the greatest fighter of all time? And that was probably wrong of me. But then we went to Rookie and immediately was Casey O'Neill and we were like, this might not have been a great call. I will say, in Rookie of the Year's defense, it's been pretty good since then, right? Like our 2022, AK, your boy, Jailton Almeida, 23, Diego Lopez, last year Carlos Prattas. So, like, Rookie had been doing, these feel like meaningful fighters, but But I just think rookie of the year sounds very silly because it's who did their UFC debut, whereas, like, the storylines are better. And frankly, like, Carlos Prottis probably would have just been breakout fighter of the year last year as well. And so I like what we've gotten.

And I really like it because I think Josh Van, to bring this back to the topic at hand, is sort of the perfect vessel for this, right? because I know Mike's going to defend his pick to put Waldrow-Ketezikost over, and it's not an awful choice. He's my number two call. But like Josh Van would not have been eligible for rookie of the year this year. And because of how things ended up, probably not going to win Fighter of the Year, right? But this was a remarkable year from a guy who started January unranked. Yes, he was a young prospect.

And I think most of us, if asked would have said, That guy's going to fight for a belt one day. But he went from, he's going to fight for a belt one day to, okay, he gets a win. Then he fights the number 12 ranked dude in June. And like, okay, he gets that. And then suddenly short notice, number one contender beats him in our fight of the year. Boom, flyway champion at the end of the world. Yes, it came under a bit of weird circumstances, but still, he went from unranked to champion in 12 months time.

That's the definition of breaking out. And so I'm glad we brought this back because otherwise, like, picking Bisongers or Sikaiev, like, that's not nearly as fun. Huh. That's a good question. Yeah, because I didn't even think about it. I have no idea. I can't remember.

I can't remember who they. I think it's honestly, like the two people tied for six in this award. Alexia Tynara. It's Tynara or Jimmy Suss more than likely. And I love Tynara. But people would just see that and be like, what the? It would be, based on our rank, it would be Kevin Vallejos because he is the top rank guy

who made his debut this year. Oh, he did. And so that's probably true. And that's not even bad because I think Laios has a huge future ahead of him. But like, it's better that it's Josh Van. Like this, it just is better for what we are trying to, the points, the vibes, the energy we're trying to get across. This was Josh Vann's breakout year.

and it should be celebrated as such. Yeah, our whole top three, I think, needs to be, like, recognized because none of these guys debuted this year, but they clearly raise themselves to another level of notoriety and success. Like, Waldo, even with the loss to Sergey, no one even talks about that anymore. I think most people think, like, he went undefeated in 2025. But, like, that lost to Sergey was not long ago.

It's just he got back in the cage and did the damn thing, and we've just kind of moved on from it. I mean, Sergey's ranked higher than him, for sure. but who's the more well-known popular fighter right now? It's Waldo Cortez-A-Costa by a mile. Like, it is not close. I don't know if Sergei has fought since then, right? I think Sergey has just, you got that win and, you know, is able to sit on it.

Yeah, he has not fought since, and not long ago, August. But Waldo's been in there. And Walter, you have to talk about it. I mean, just becoming the heel-hook master, getting a great gimmick. So I think we did it right. Like, Kevin Valenhos is the rookie of the year, but I think you need to make a list if you want to do a separate list that's a whole thing but if you're putting them all together you would have to put these three guys above him as far as if we're just time of

breakthrough breakout whatever you want to call it so yeah I think I think I love that we that we went back to it Mike I had a take but I don't want to step on what I think might be your take and if because you do need to explain why you went WCA over Josh fan because it's not as bad as does he go and thing but But give the viewers your reasoning for why you felt Waldo Cretace Acosta deserves this over unranked to champion flyweight journey of Josh Van. Okay. So, I mean, there are a number of factors that went into this.

Number one, we have to remember. And I actually did even 100% realize this until I cast my final vote. The last time Waldo Cortez Acosta competed before this year was, the Rebellus to Spain fight. And that was the one everybody ripped him to shreds for because it was not fun. It was a guy going out and trying to get a win. But it was against like the dude who because at heavyweight, we're looking for fun fighters. And Waldo just wasn't really that fun. And that performance made him just seem like, well, he's just another kind of boring heavyweight. So the way people viewed him heading into 2025 was a big part of it. Josh Van heading into 2025. Yes, he may have

lost to Charles Johnson along the way, but there wasn't a single human being on planet Earth who looked at Josh Van and said, that guy is not going to be a champion. Everybody said that. Most fans knew who this guy was. And I don't think people could say the same for Waldo Cortez Acosta. So to me, Josh broke through, like he had already broken through, but the year he had, because of what he accomplished this year, I couldn't leave him off the list altogether. So I put him at number two

And I think he 100% deserves that But if we're talking about To me unranked to Champion is big But when people expected you to be champion It takes you down just a slight notch From unranked and unknown And uncareable about

To now like one of the more popular fighters on the roster About to get a huge fight with Derek Lewis at UFC 324 That could lead him to a championship opportunity, a guy that 99% of the MMA community, like, could not stand, like led to groans every time this guy fought. The way he ended the year. And if he didn't do the Shemail Gadsyev thing, I don't even think he probably is number five, but he's certainly not number one. But the Shemil Gatsyev thing stepping in, flying across the world on three days notice, and then

still attempting to do the gimmick of fighting six times and fighting December 13th, which is absolutely bananas the UFC did not give him that opportunity and then still go fight Derek Lewis to me this is a breakout year this is the breakout year and but I still I wanted to give Josh Van his flowers for accomplishing what he accomplished but to me he had already sort of broken out he just ran through a damn wall here Jed it's it's the age old question of is a breakout more impressive if you don't see it coming because nobody could have would have predicted to AK's previous question how many guesses would it have taken to at the end of 2024 to to get to you know josh van probably not a

thousand guesses before i'm like josh van is going to break out how many to get to waldo cortez costa would have been a lot of them i probably went a lot of them trust me go back to that post fight shop the rebella spade fight trust what i recall we were all upset nobody was happy and it would have been i would have picked out costella von steinas for submission of the air way soon or than Waldo Cortez Acosta for Breakthrough Fighter of the year. And that was the case I was going to be, I was going to be like, do you guys realize the last time WCA fought? But I figured you probably would have it.

And you did. So, well done. I mean, yeah, please. Can I just point out how wide, I just want to say how wide our cartier was here again. Just for anyone looking at the list, like I know we should put it up a few times. They're probably still scratching their heads kind of like, well, why does this person count? And why does this person not count? Again, we, I will say, we did not have like a sit down to like reeval,

our breakthrough criteria. So, yeah, we kind of just, we trusted each other, which, again, as you'll see later in the show, it was a mistake. That was an unsounded. But overall, overall, I'm okay. I'm okay with where these things went. But Mike and I, I mean, we almost had Yana Santos on the blog,

because Mike and I had a very heated argument about whether he wanted what Yana Santos to be included on the short list. I love that A.K. is taking it. Yes. We, no, we, we, no, I mean, it's not on there. He eventually did not put her up vote for it, which will make me almost more angry. We really went out. I think I, I think I called like an F word, B word at one point.

But hold on a second. Hold on a second. Hold on. The only here, the only reason I was going to put her on a list was because the way this breakthrough fighter was explained to me initially when we're going to bring it back was we were going to do two separate awards. We're going to do a male and a female. And Yana, while she had fought for a belt, I mean, literally.

throughout her entire career through multiple last names, nobody cared at all until Macy Chesson missed weight. And she put out that tweet and everyone went bananas for it. And then she went out and beat Macy Chess on. And Joseph Bosa cried himself to sleep because Macy was out of the title picture, but still believe she was a win away because she missed weight. And technically it wasn't a Bannamweight fight. So that take has since got away.

So she is a hero in that regard. But that was the most anybody has cared about Yada Santos ever like literally ever So to be like if we're doing a top five women's breakout fighter because women's enemy is at a pretty tough spot Yana like actually like did some stuff and won some fights and she's on a nice run and people like started to care a little bit So I want to put her at number five. She certainly went to one But she wasn't making like once I found out we were combining lists. I was like yeah there's no chance she's getting on this list I'm just saying I'm just saying a Okay, when I chastised you about not including Amon Zahabi, I at least had the dignity to vote for

Amon Zahommy. Okay. I did not know. I love this. By the way, I love this. I'm glad you brought this up because, you know, just kind of rounding things out. This is very close. Like, it was a one-two race.

Like, Josh Van, anyone who didn't have Josh Van and or Waldo Courts as Acosta is just wrong. I love Guillermo. Those are very clearly. Are you, are we calling out of people? Terrifically. Terrifically wrong. David not having David not having Waldo on this list

is bananas to me Like it's just truly bananas Those are like two automatics That need that absolutely have to be on this list Like there's just no way around it Josh Van and or I didn't like I get I already thought Josh Van broke through

But I would have been a complete prick If I didn't put Josh on this list Let alone not putting him in the top two So to not have him there at all Is absolutely insane But it was a those two the only ones in the 40s. Walker had 27,

Vallejo's a 22. Thad Gene, the lone PFL representative, at least in the top five, comes in at number five. Coming at six points, six points behind at number six. It was a tie, as we mentioned before.

Alexia Tynera, aka I both voted for her from short notice debut, ruined my fantasy that season, single-handedly by retiring Molly McCann who had a minus, 1,200 fight in front of her. She is now a ranked fighter.

She is a ranked fighter in just two fights. I think she impressed the hell out of me AK this year and she is someone that is completely my radar. I'm getting Natty ice vibes in terms of like her ceiling. That's how impressed I was with her this year. And then we had Jimmy Suss Bines and yours, or Sikaiyev

also had 11 points tied with Tyner and the rest of the honorable mentions we have, we pull us up. Chris Duncan, Michael Morales, PFL Grand Prix winner, Marseerly Alves and Melchaseo Alcosta gets a six-pointer. That's because of me. And then Jed, I mean, I really love this from you.

Your number five, Amin Sahavi, spectacular pick. You dropped this on me during BTL, I believe, and I was like, wow. This is so damn good. Talk about your Amin Sahabi pick. How did you come with it? What was the reactions when you told AK and everybody else? Just a terrific. AK was like, what are you talking about?

And I was like, no, like he legitimately, he might be the breakout fighter of the year. And AK was like, why? And I did at least vote for him because there was a time where I was like, I don't know, maybe he's, he's not going to be over Josh Mann. He's probably not going to be a Waldo Cortez-Costa. but like in the same manner of of how you sort of broke down wca's run right like amends a hobby only had two wins this year there's big a wins as you can have for two wins in the middle of a ranking like amends a hobby's entire career he has been oh you're the brother of ferras and you kind of fight some like that's it like he's it okay you can speak to this more frankly like freely

than I can, but in my head, and I think in the head of most people, Mike Ballot is the great hope for Canadian MMA. Like maybe Yasmin Yazadavish. Amon's a hobby is quietly like actually the best Canadian fighter in the world. And he's not. He's terrible. I will go to my grave thinking he can't fight. But it doesn't matter what I think. It's what he has proven in the cage. And, you know, he got two mega wins this year to go from Farras's brother who fights and whatever to you might be one win away from a title fight like you're the best Canadian fighter alive

like that that feels like the textbook definition to me of like breaking out from ignominy to something substantive even if I still don't think he can fight incredible defense of your so good so good you said i'm like it makes so much sense like that is the same that's the same yada santos thing we're just like she's fought a whole bunch but like nobody knew as yanna santo guys yana santos has fought for a ufc title she was i think top 10 going into 2025 and i would argue people honestly still don't care about her that much so that that was my

my beef with the yada santo's thing but the people let me tell you makes sense people do care about Amen's a hobby. I know this because when I say he's not good at fighting, people let me know that I'm wrong. And I counter by tell me what he's good at. And they say stuff. When people say that, you know their answer is always stuff like in the NFL draft when you can't say a quarterback's bad. So you're just like, he's a leader. He's got intangibles. He's a winner. Coachable. I'm like, okay so he's not good at anything he just wins and that's a credit to him arguably forrest griffin wasn't good and he became a champion you know like it's a credit to be not good and to be as successful so uh that's also my maya culpa to the to the many aim into hobby fans to all the

canadians for disrespecting your boy i legitimately believe he's had one of the five breakout years of like campaigns of the year can we talk about the worst choice on this ballot and it's not even Guy leaving Josh Van Offit. Damon and Waldo Cortez-A-Costa? It's not Damon. I mean, it is to some extent. I just want to see if y'all can do this. Can y'all tell me how many fights Chris Duncan has had this year?

Three or two? Three? Which one? I'll say three. It is three. Can you tell me who they were over? Terrence McKitty. That happened a week ago.

Matusia Rebetschki. That was a good fight. That was incredible fight. Great fight. God, who was the first one? You're never going to get it. I could have never ever pulled it. Jordan Vucinich.

Oh, I would never got that. Yeah, like, that's a rock solid year. And Chris Duncan is absolutely in play for an all violence team. But like, the number two breakout fighter of the year is a fighter who there's another guy named Chris Duncan on roster. Hey, come on. What are we doing here? It's a ridiculous take. He's the number two breakout fighter.

I'll defend it a little bit. Again, would not have made my list. We're not have made my list. Number two. Yes. I was checking to see, did he manage to make it to the rankings? He's not top 15 in the UFC.

But I will say lightweight, of course, is one of the more difficult top 15s to break into. So if you want to argue Chris Duncan's top 25 and like, a hell of a breakout going from unranked to unranked. Well, I would say went from out, well, I would say went from outside the top 25 into the top 25. of the deepest division in may right like i think that like again and we talk about the uc rankings all the time what do they even mean right like different different making top 15 of light

heavy weight is not the same as making the same it's not the same as making top 15 of light weight right it's it's it's difficult so i would have like to have seen duncan at least beat a top 20 guy like i wouldn't put mcini in there i probably wouldn't put rebechki in there but we should remember with the vich win obviously not a guy who's top 20 in the oc right now he was a huge underdog in that fight he was actually really really big underdog because um vchenich was getting a lot of that Mike's favorite thing, the cage warriors rub. You know, oh, there's got some cage warriors. It's a killer in cage where he's going to come in and immediately.

That's why I faded him. That's why you faded him big time. And you were right. So we have to, you know, maybe the win hasn't aged well. I think Wuchinich already got released, right? Or won it? He fought again lost, didn't he? Yeah, yeah.

He's already back in Cage Warriors. And I like Jordan Trenner, like I actually think he's a really good fighter. But at the time, you know, he was viewed as even more. So I'll give him credit for that. the fight of the year fight of the year candidate with um wretcheny i guess is take it or leave it right

because we know mackinney is like the ultimate glass the ultimate glass cannon he's finishing you or you're finishing him but i'll defend i do think two is way too high i think like if he had him you know on his list like fifth yeah i but um five would be fine five would be fine okay but do you know another fighter who fought three times had two finishes one one bonus and actually did go from unranked to in the rankings in a very good weight class, no less?

Kevin Vallejos! He doesn't rank! Kevin Vallejos beat Giga-Chiccate, which is at least as good as Terrence McKinney, if not much better. I don't, it's a, Chris, this is not to disrespect Chris Duncan, who, like I said, had a good year. Great year. And I think is going to be either first or second team, all violence at lightweight. like he had a great year

I putting him like put not including Waldo Cortezza Costa but including Walter Walker is a choice because I'm like okay maybe he's doing the Casey thing where he's just heavy weights don't count never mind he'd put Walter Walker in there so that's not it like it's it requires a very narrow

window to get there and I can't figure out how we got to Chris Duncan is the second biggest breakout fighter of 2025 yeah i didn't have kevin on the list it was he was it was between him and who i and i went with milky costa uh four and oh and i think costas wins were just so good like they were all excellent wins feely finished him christian rodriguez good win juliana rosa good win and then he highlight reeled morgan charier who is a pretty good fighter and i know jed that hurts to hear me say i didn't care at that point Yeah, he was already out.

I was already dead conversation, but, um, just for it out, like, I didn't even, yeah, it was six. It was really cool. So I put him over Valleos because like that to me was just like, hearing the UFC broadcast that night say he's four, that's his fourth win of 2025. I was like, what? I didn't even know that. So to me, it was like a no brainer. And especially like going back and seeing the wins that he, that he got was a hell of a year for him. And Kevin's right there.

And again, Kevin is, to me, he broke out on contender series. And again, we look at a guy, that's a dude who we're like, okay, that dude's going to fight for a belt someday, or at least it's going to get damn close. And when they book Giga Chikaze, I was just like, all right, he's going to thump up Giga and the torch is going to be passed because I never thought Giga was the top 15 featherweight to begin with. But great win. And he deserves to be a, he deserves spots and votes for this list as well. So, but yeah, the Duncan one's a little weird. I have, I have trashed Damon and wars to come. I would like to throw Damon an olive brand.

here because I was surprised didn't make my list because I had to put a man to hobby for the sake of my honor but I think arguably the fighter who suffered the most in our transition from breakthrough or back to breakthrough from rookie of the year is a guy who if we were just looking at rookie of the year maybe would have had a really good chance at it right like I would have voted Kevin Phil Leos for certainly and I think others would have as well, but Quillen Salkhild, who Damon ranked as his number four of the year, I mean, three and oh, one of the better knockouts of the year against Nazrat Haq Pras, like that he broke out in a lot of a way, but if he was just being considered rookie of the year, I think he's

almost certainly in a top five ballot. Sure. And so he might have been the biggest sufferer of the shift back to breakthrough. completely agree that's good good job damon good job getting him on there because uh yeah i'm just looking back i told him he was my number six yeah i it was between him and amen

and then i was like i told a k he has to put aim in here and i think i probably need to do that you bumped quill and saw killed for your favorite fighter amends uh well thank you for putting a canadian on there we appreciate i love that is amen he's the best canadian fighter acted the best active canadian fighter Thank you very much. Folks, we are heading to the knockout of the year next. And then after that, oh, boy, we're really going to get into this thing.

But there's no doubt about it. Don't go anywhere. But bodies hit the floor, ladies gentlemen, from punches and kicks. A whole bunch of spinning stuff throughout 2025. A lot of great finishes from the striking martial arts. So now it is time to crown the winner of the 2025 knockout of the year. And here are the nominees. Lots of great knockouts. Lots of them, but there can only be one.

The 2025 MA fighting knockout of the year winner is by one freaking point. Just one point. Mauritio Ruffi over King Green, UFC 313 in March, spinning heel kick, nasty stuff. They call him one shot for a reason. And boom, K.O. of the year. Let us pull up the graphic here, pull up the tabulation, coming at at number two. By one point, as I said, Lorone Murphy spinning back elbow of Aaron Pico at UFC 319. Ilya is lightweight winning, lightweight championship winning KO at UFC 317 comes in

in number three. Sergio Pettis and his spinning elbow of Magamad Maga Madoff comes in at number four. And the aforementioned Killen Salkild in at number five with his nasty headkick of Nazrat, hackperast at UFC 321 in October. A.K., Ruffy gets the win. He was your number one vote getter, but you impacted this thing in another way. Yes, you had Lorone Murphy's knockout in your top five,

but everybody else on the voting panel had Murphy's knockout at number one or number two. You had it at number five, and had you put this anywhere else on your voting tabulation list, Lorone Murphy would be the 2025 knockout of the year winner. So this is all your fault. Do you want to apologize to Lorone Murphy? No, I'm just kidding. No, I joke.

But why was Roofie? He's the only guy who got all five right. Listen, listen. No, but why was Riffy number one and why was Murphy number five? I'm a man of integrity, first of one. Let me say this. And I don't want people to think that because I am the one who quarterbacks these things. I do do the math that I had like,

And like, I did not intentionally do this. Like I didn't like tabulate and go like, oh, well, I don't want, I want my pick to be number one. If I, if I, and I didn't have like originally have Murphy Pico too and then move it down to fifth, you know, knowing that it would be, I did not do that. I wish I had. I think if Niki seemed so much smarter. But, yeah, this really is just how it turns out. I actually did not even realize it that that was my, my fifth place vote is what made it land just in that second spot right in there. I think I'm probably not giving Murphy enough credit for for knocking up Pico.

Pico's kind of in that Terrence McKinney range, right? Where, like, he's a bit of a glass cannon. But that shouldn't take away from what Murphy did. Like, the guy never knocks anyone out. I'm also probably, and it's not fair to him, I'm just probably just bummed out by the whole Lerone Murphy situation. Like, this should have guaranteed him a title shot. We saw this knockout.

We're like, the whole Lerong Murphy story is, what more does this man have to do? And then people would always say, well, he needs to get a finish. He needs to finish someone. Okay. Well, you put him in there with a guy who, it looks like a star from Belator, a guy who if he had won very likely you were positioning him to get a title shot not only does murphy beat him he gets that huge knockout and and i guess i'm just frustrated that he's not getting the title shot so i i'm i'm uh he's being penalized for reasons that are out of his control um this was also an impossible list just to make like there was so many amazing knockouts uh i'm trying to think i have to see who's not even on our honorable mention list because i guarantee you there's some that's not even on the graphic that i could have put in the top five um there was just some unbelievably some of them i think i went for more meaningful like why is uh you know toporia olivera my number

two charles olivera is also a glass cannon um but i think just the uh i think every toporia knockout i think it's just so compelling for various reasons like the the wokenowski one the max hollow one now the olivera one so it really just stuck with me cell killed my god that was one of the scariest knockouts that was the scariest knockout of 2025 and pedis i just got to always show love to sergio because um this guy's just always doing crazy things in beltor and pfl and sadly probably getting bonus points for the post elbow punch that may have ended Megamadav's career.

I'm not even joking. That was horrible doesn't watch. So yeah, so those were my reasons why Pico Murphy was, sorry, Murphy Pico was behind all of those. But yeah, no regrets. Now, it's even funnier now that I see it. To be clear, AK is saying that Sergio Pettis's spinning back elbow was better

than the other ones that happened. It was the best of them this year. Yes. I didn't realize that A.K. I think your list is fine. It's a fine list. I want to say this is the outcome

of all of our categories that shocked me. I'm exactly the same. I had no... I knew what I was doing at Subb of the year. I thought it'd be unanimous, but it still was what it was. I was really certain

who was going to win breakout fighter of the year. Same thing happened. I, you know, Fight of the year, it was not what I went with, but I thought that that probably would end up carrying the day. Fighter of the year, which we're going to talk about after this, is who I thought was going to win it. This one didn't see it coming at all. And that is no disrespect to Marisa Huffy and Mory's Green, or not Mory's Green, that that would frankly be the knockout of the year.

The crochet boss. That would be incredible, King Green. But like, I don't, this just, it happened so early in the year and then Ruffy lost. And so it wasn't even like, it's an awesome spectacular knockout. But in my head, I kind of was like, I didn't feel amazing about it because as AK pointed out, Charles Lever had been knocked out before. It was such an aesthetic knockout. It was so pure and so meaningful and so good and significant.

I was like, I thought Tupori Oliver was going to be it. If you had been like, hey, what do you think is going to win? I would have been like, I think Tepore Oliver is going to end up taking it. It might be close, but it'll be that. And then it's, it's number three. It wasn't even competitive realistically with the top two runners. So this is the category that took me the most by surprise. Yeah, I'm completely with you there because I guess I'm not like fully surprised.

I think the one thing, and I don't want to keep, it's, I'm not calling these two guys up. I'm just saying if they're I was like there there there's three knockouts here that are going to be on every single person's list and it was the top three that we had. Tuporia is going to be on the same guys keeps being the same guys. I thought Tupori was going to win too because at least typically over history with us like it's it's not even the best knockout gets it but when the stakes are high and their significance behind it, it's like even if it's not anywhere near being the best and most like overall members. I guess, like on the laundry list of knockouts, it's still going to win it because of what it meant. And the fact that Teporia finished third is shocking to me. Like I thought it would be it weren't, if it wasn't Teporia,

Murphy was going to win, then it would be Teporia, like out by a point, and then it would be Ruffie at three or something like that. But completely opposite of what we got here. And you and I, Jed, both had this I knockout and number one, became a two division champion and not only was this to be like the most memorable knockout of the year it was the most impactful like not just knockout jenn it's the defining knockout of the year it's the most impactful it's the defining moment of all of 2025 for the ufc i think like when i think back on 2025 the first thing i'm going to remember is ilia tipporia

knocking out charles olivera all the shit he talked along the way everything that built up to that moment the two belts the rose everything all of it which is why i gave him the top spot it's the moment i remember more than anything else for you personally do you want to dive a little bit deeper as to why this was your number one and why the voting came out the way that it did for you overall um it's for a lot of the same reasons uh even though i thought that this would happen like i was very very confident that ilia was going to knock out charles um i got less confident as the fight got close and I was like maybe Charles can make this fun um but like he's Ilya this is this is the moment I don't I hadn't thought about it until you just said it this

might be the moment I think of as the defining 2025 moment um maybe not and because the ilia and Islam stories are just so intertwined maybe it's some combination of both of them but this is very clearly the most significant individual moment of the year more so than the subs of the year, the knockouts, like there's, this was it of, hey, the, the guy that's the next Connor did the thing. And he did it in spectacular fashion. The UFC has been kind of shoving him down our throats, frankly. And we see why, because he can pay it off like this. And so, uh, you know, this is the one that I think it'll age the best, right? Like that the, the, the ruffy green will age in cool ways in the same way that Edson Barbosa is not.

knockout over Terry Edom, like has aged, that's still awesome. Interestingly, not the MMA fighting 2012 knockout of the year that year. You would never guess what it was. It's Cungley, Rich Franklin. I wasn't on staff at that point. That was before my tenure. But, you know, like that aged well in that it's still cool. And the ruffy green will still be cool.

But it's not significant. And the ruffie green will never be that significant. and it was to me that Olivera the aesthetics were if it was like a lame TKO okay that's not as cool but this was a sick knockout perfect technique and aesthetic combination mixed with significance and so that's why it's my number one i am frankly i know we've attacked damon a couple of times here i certainly have i'm not even that mad that he left it off uh i am really interested in why though like i would love if he could explain and it wouldn't have mattered if he put it on, it would still finish third.

So this isn't like a, I don't really care in that regard. But I would love an explanation for how that doesn't at least. And frankly, same for Guy, like how that doesn't rate in the top five of the year because it was very cool and incredibly significant. And like,

as respectfully as I can say this, Kayla Harrison's win over Julianna Pena, if you're going to put that as a top five submission of the year, you're doing it out of the significance not that that was like an especially cool submission so how does that not also translate here to Charles Olivera getting sent

to the shadow realm by the next great like maybe the greatest fighter of this generation AK you had Toporia number two yeah why well I'll say I'll just say I as Joe was saying I had no idea actually what I was going

to put number one as I went into this voting I think in my mind I I, you know, the first knockout I think of was the Tuporia Oliver one, right? So that's why it was, like, I think it started the top of the list and eventually got bumps down by, by Hoopi Green. It's, it's, again, it's, you can't take away from DePore Olivera fight. It's just simply like, I like the, the Rupi and Green one more. I just, um, I don't know, just so, it just looked so nice.

I think I just put it on replay. I must have replayed it like 20 times. I was just looking over and I'm like, man, that's really fun. That's a really cool knockout. And, uh, I understand the historical argument. And all I'll say is keep in mind, my vote, this is the same guy who put Brett Johns over Joe Soto over the Mighty Whiz Bar. So I don't know if I even need to explain this fit because I think we kind of explained it with that little trip down memory lane earlier in the show. Like if you think we look at the logic there, well, I guess even not because people are like, what are you talking about the Mighty Whiz Bar was not only significant, but cooler than we don't need to.

Literally has a very good argument to being the coolest submission in the history. it is all right combat sports it was it was fine i mean for a guy like dj who hasn't accomplished much in his career i would say yes if you want to put it up there just to like you know throw him a bone and say yeah you know okay finally finally did something like yeah okay other than that like other than what are we talking about like this is a great bit this is unbelievable brett johns joe soto that's all i'm going to say uh but yeah it was not a matter of like oh not one soto just not one soda that's how memorable it was uh it's it's not a matter of like oh the Toporia, like why this is worse than the Ruby Green knockout. It's just like, it's just,

I think both are great. Um, notability, of course, you've got to get to Deporia, but um, aesthetically pleasing boy. I don't know. That was one of the sweetest, uh, spin kick knockouts I've seen. I think the higher levels of M.A. Um, and Bobby Green is not like a easy guy to K.O. I'm standing anywhere. I'm trying to think. I mean, there was what, you dober? Jail and just happened out slutter. Jail and her him real bad. Oh, it has been happening in recent years. So maybe I should. It's happened more lately because he's gotten old and fall as he's old yeah uh i stand by it i stand by it but you can't go wrong with to pori and that's the thing i want to be clear about this this shocked me i have no issues with it like i'm

yeah because it's it's undeniably cool are very very possibly the coolest thing that like the coolest thing that like the coolest knock out of the year the most aesthetically pleasing one i i just did not see it coming um you know i had it ranked three i thought this was a olivera murphy two horse race and i got that all the way wrong but that's why i like doing these things because i would have never guessed this and like i said i don't think it's wrong it's just not what i thought was happening yeah very surprising i'm glad i'm glad i'm glad you and gie put on uh what's what's the guy's name uh yeah i was just gonna rothorov shinkarevsky yeah what was his first what's the guy's first i'm so jaron jaren jaren yes jaren lathrop uh coming in at number six pro debut honestly uh

Crazy. His pro debut, he's on the NBA fighting, knock out of the ear list for the sick jumping spin kick. If you haven't seen it. And XFC 52. The article should include it or into it. Grabaka, Hitman on Twitter, Kaposa has a post. Yeah. It is the walking Buckley ninja kick.

It is. Not quite as good because the guy doesn't, you know, die in the same fashion. He doesn't timber fall. Yeah. And so that's why it was honestly. that straight up just would have been my number one. I don't care that it's a regional thing. If that had been a clean, like finish, finish,

easily the number one, because he sort of tips over to the cage and then there's a follow-up, I docked it, but still, that's some movie stuff. Like, that had to make my top five. That's the kind of thing you only do, though, in your pro debut. Because I think most people would say, if you're walking, Buckley.

Or if you're walking Buckley, yeah. Do not throw, like, you're not going to land it. It's just going to end up you're getting, like, You can take him down. But man, if you land it, it's pretty good. And it's the coolest thing you'll ever do in your hole. It's like Mike knows this. I don't think you do this.

It's like you tee off and you slice it into the trees. You should not go for that one inch gap shot to play on. You should just take your medicine. That's not what Jerome Lantrop did. He did not take his medicine. He went for the hero shot and he was a hero. Yes. I mean, you don't pay all that money.

to lay up out of the trees on the first here to have fun and he had some fun yeah absolutely uh pulled this back up we have water charlotte is flying knee knockout of dennis linton at baroka three in june that is tied with yuri per hashka's knockout of cleo roundtree at ufcc if you gave me a thousand votes of who would tie yuri per hashka in the knocko category uh i would not have said wire art yoletta one archela's name would not have come up but congratulations to him uh also So Randy Brown and Carlos Pratchez make the list for their knockouts of Nicholas Dalby and Jeff Neal, respectively. That's who rounds out the honorable mentions and Lathrop's K.O. was sick. And Jed, tied with your boy, Yeri Prahashka.

Any chance you get the chance to wax poetically about Yeripahshka, I'm going to give it to you. I was surprised here wasn't on the top five. But again, I don't even honestly disagree, right? Like this all killed K.O. was the most violent scale. various K of the year. I frankly think I just gave the Pettus Magamatov knockout, like less credit than it probably deserved. For me, the Yeri one, maybe he even got a touch of an extra boost because he also had the Jamal Hill performance, which was sick. I don't think people remember it because it's a Yeri fight and they're always fun and chaotic. Yeri Pajasca lost

10 minutes of this fight. Yuri Prahashka needed this knockout. And he, even though the second round was more competitive than the first, Khalil Roundtree was, he was doing the things that people were praising him for against Alex Pereira, right? Like he was, oh, look, he's so technical with his moitai, and he just keeps kicking Yuri a bunch, and he's getting his head off the center line, and Yeri's head is right up there, and this is going poorly.

And then Yeri pushed the big red crazy button. and nobody can withstand the big red crazy button other than Alex Pereira. He's the only pro fighter who can because when Yeri was just decided he did not care and he drowned Khalil not in like, I'm going to take you down

and drown you Habib style, he just drowned him by advancing and hitting him as much as he possibly could and Khalil's body just sort of surrendered to this big crazy samurai kill it like I don't even know what to call Yuri at this point

I think that this knockout especially the circumstances around it because it's a violent knockout in its own right and the camera pan to Khalil who is like just face up staring at the lights conscious but done is pretty harsh

because he had taken a lot at that point it's an incredible comeback and I wish it got a little more love frankly even though i can't disagree with the other calls i i do wish you just got a little bit more love though i would that would have been my number six because i remember like what i as you're like going crazy as you're going through the sequence and then we were talking earlier about like the most fun i had watching a moment or a fight it was that third round it was that third round it was that third round if i could go back to the watch party and just like rewatch that third round on the watch party

i that's probably what i was glowing the most and just having like the absolute time. You're watching Khalil Roundtree who, this is maybe a bit trite, but is like very apropos. That is a man trying to fight the sands of time. Like you can physically see him just being overwhelmed and digging into battle. And eventually he succumbs under the weight of the ocean. That is Yuri Prakashka's big red crazy button. But it is, it is cinematic and beautiful and a violent-ass knockout at the end. So I encourage any who missed it, go back and the whole fight is fun and it's Yeri. Watch every time Yeri fights, he is one of like five fighters who, it does not matter

who he's fighting. Watch it. It will be awesome. But this was, I thought this was better than the Jamal Hill one by Goodly Margin. And I had a great time with it. And so shout out to my boy. AKA, who would have been your number six? oh i mean let's drop i think it's an easy choice uh of course like i said before yeary does feel weird

he didn't crack any of our top fives and he had a great year i feel like i feel like we talked i feel like we talked about yri a lot he had two very good years or two very good fights i actually need to go back to our honorable mention list because like i said i feel like there's guys that aren't even on the honorable mention list um year he's on all of ours because i kept putting in there fruitlessly voting for him I remember one that almost made it was the Jean-Paul La Boisne.

Yeah, that didn't really deserve it, but that was a good chaos. That would have been really fun. There was a few, like, Cesar Omeida, Abdul Razak al-Hassan was on our short list. Ricky Simone. Yeah, that's a good one.

I'm trying to think who else. Elijah Smith, he killed that dude. Shout out to my boy, Elijah Smith. That was a good one. Michael Morrell, like, I... Oh, Alex Pereira, I think, is the one that's the most obviously, like, even though that chaos is not that, that chaos is very significant.

Right. It's very cool. I thought people might vote for it. I was never going to crack mine, but it, that's probably the one, the viewers at home were being like, I can't believe that's not on there. I kind of like wish I threw Michael Morales, Sean Brady on there. One of Michael Morales is, sure. Yeah.

I mean, the Morales Brady finished was unbelievable. Like, it literally, like, it opened my eyes. And I knew he was going to be good in a guy that could potentially fight for a belt. But that performance and that finish told me, okay, this guy could fight Islamakachev right now. And I'm dying to see it. Really want to see it. So, yeah, there's a lot of great finishes, some that just flew under the radar. And it was a good year for finishes and knockout submissions, all of that stuff.

But guys, we have delayed it long enough. I believe what you are about to witness is the most chaotic thing I've ever seen in MMA award show history. New York Rick's infamous Ronda Rousey is the comeback fighter of the year pick on the MMA hour pales in comparison to what is about to happen here. There's just one award to go. It's the fighter of the year. And business, as the great Jim Ross says, is about to pick up. Ladies and gentlemen, here are the nominees. for the 2025

MMA fighting fighter of the year. Marab de Wallis Willie Joshua Vann Islam Makachev Piotr Yom Valentina Shevchenko

And the 2025 MMA fighting fighter of the year is the now two division UFC champion Islam Makachev

2-0 in 2025. Shout out to Islamakachev. Well-deserved. Submits Hidotaboykano at UFC 3-11, was not originally supposed to fight Hidata Moikani. He's supposed to fight Arm in Surukin. On a day's notice, his son said, hey, I'm the champ.

I will fight whoever the UFC tells me to fight. Doesn't matter if it's a minute, a month, or a day's notice. I'm doing it. And then he goes up to 170, vacates the lightweight belt, fights Jack Della Madelena, wins the welterweight title, barely broke a sweat doing it, dominant at Madison Square Garden to close out UFC 322, a very impactful event. Now, I know what you might be thinking, ladies and gentlemen.

And you're thinking, Mike, I stuck around here for this whole show. And it's a great show, by the way. It's maybe the best award show I've ever watched in my entire life. And I'm expecting drama. I'm expecting chaos. And the fighter of the year is Islam Makachev. Quite the leap of faith. Quite the hot take, right?

Clickbait. I'm seeing it all right now. As you're live chatting, the whole nine, Islam winning, not a big shock. Show the scorecards. And we're going to get there. We're going to get there. And let me just say this as the host of this show.

I'm going to mostly step aside. But here's what I'm going to say before I actually pull up the scorecard. I've got to solo shot myself here. Damon Martin, who we have been talking about throughout this program. If there's a few things I know about Damon Martin, the man loves a good horror movie. Loves a good horror movie. He loves a great dramatic television show, especially like an FX show, a show created by the great Kurt Sutter. You know, he, Kurt Sutter created Sons of Anarchy, Mayans MC, and my favorite television show of all time, The Shield.

Okay. I think Damon Martin might be the Vic Mackie of M.MA fighting voters because there was a frigging robbery here. There was a robbery here of epic proportions. History should have been made here today on the show, but that's not going to happen on the show. And here is why, ladies and gentlemen, as you can see, Islamachchev wins the fighter of the year solo. But at worst, he should have been sharing this award with our second place vote getter, the UFC women's flyweight champion Valetita Shvchenko, who got three first place votes, a second and a third. Islam got just one first place vote, wins the award. But David didn't even put Schifchenko in his top five after being the only fighter in the UFC this year to beat their division's number one contender and also defeat, not just defeat, but dominate the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world in the same year.

Nobody else did this. Nobody. I'm going to bring the list back up so you can really take this. this said take a look at it breathe it in pierre on coming at number three barab de walsh willie the former bannamway champion in a number four and the brand new ufc flyway champion joshua vann what a year for him at number five here's what i'll say before i turn it over to the fellers damon i asked to come on the show he was all in to come on this program however he hit me up earlier today as we record having some Wi-Fi issues did not want to commit to it and his

Wi-Fi issues have not been fixed. Trust me when I tell you this, Damon Martin ain't scared. He is not scared to come on here and run the gauntlet that was going to be thrown at him. I even said, hey, if you want to just throw out a little statement for me to read, we'll do it. It is Christmas Eve as you record. It's his day off and he's got no Wi-Fi. So I totally understand what is going on here. But the last thing I'll say about this, and I'm going to turn it over to yet at a moment is I said this earlier and I truly believe this.

A.K. showing up the M.A. fighting side. We're family. We're a family. Yes. And we say this out of love. Family's fight. It's okay. We're family. But I said this earlier. And I think it's true. I'm actually, would be complete, this would be the most shocking thing

if this is wrong. Damon Martin is the only person who casts a vote for an award on planet Earth covering M.A. That did not vote for Valencia to Shepchenko. And if we're splitting it, male and female, if you look at what he, what he did here, he would be the only person in the world to not have Valentina Shepchenko as the top female fighter in 2025. Let's just pull this

back up here. He voted for somebody else who is a women's fighter and a champion, and it was not Valentina Shepchenko. So even if we split it male and female, he wouldn't even had Valentina Shepchenko at number one, which is absolutely bananas. So Jed, let me start with you, because the three of us, you AK and I, we all had Valentina Shepchenko at number one. Damon did not vote for her. And I know some of you heard his side of things and our Slack channel.

I got to read some of his sides of things and I don't agree with really anything that he said. I really wish she was here to defend his take. And that's fine. You guys can reach out to him. He'll welcome it and he'll give his side of the story. Your reaction to how we got here, Jed, your reaction to what you have seen from Damon

and quite simply, the major question is did Valencia to Schofchenko get robbed of at worst being the co-fighter of the year for M-Afighting.com because of Damon. So I want to start by saying

I'm glad we are recording this today because I would have been a lot more hot about this yesterday. When the ballots dropped and I could see what happened. I was very displeased. I am still displeased because it is, we can argue, as we have on this show about the other selections.

This is wrong. I don't even think I need to use, like the words like objectively or subjectively. It is incorrect. There is not a rational, reasonable defense to not even include her. I will also say that we I don't know if we've ever talked about this

but I don't know if she would have shared number one she had three first place votes Mokachev would have had one if he just ranked her at all if he appropriately ranked her in the top three or four she would have cleanly won and so like there's that I want to say that I have settled down in this regard some because I anticipated as the Mokachev being our fighter

of the year this year that's what I thought It's not what I voted. I believe it should be Valentina Shibchenko. But I didn't think there would be a sort of groundswell of support for her case to this. I think she, and in the terms of who's the fighter we're going to remember the most from this year, I think Islam's a good choice. Like if that's how we're looking at it, I don't think you can go wrong by saying 2025 was the year Islam Machchip stepped out from Habib Shadow. He set the lightweight title defense record, circumstances be damned, he still did it, and then he went up and he won the Welterweight belt and established himself as arguably the best fighter of his generation.

I don't think that's wrong, and my quibbles here are not to say that ranking, as Jeremy did, ranking Islam number one is wrong. If you did that, I got no issue with that. I don't even have an issue with Damon ranking Piotrion number one. I think Piotrion had a tremendous year. I had him ranked number four in my list. But, you know, he had a serviceably good win against a ranked fighter and Marcus McGee. And then the best of all of the wins

that anyone scored this year, his victory over Marab de Valishvili is the best one. And so you want to give him fighter of the year? I'm okay with that too. There's just not a rational, reasonable argument that Valentina Shupchenko isn't ranked at all, especially, one, the argument again i'm not trying to to make his arguments for him because he can do that

whenever he gets onto a pod and we can talk about it but we did talk about this some yesterday and two things stick out at me before i throw it to a k one the kela harrison is an unconscionable right like this is and this is a fighter who had fought once this year dominant win over juliana pania sure victim finish sure damon martin has come on air many times to say that Julianna Pena is the worst fighter on roster. So, like, you can't hold that in the same esteem as beating the number one contender in your weight class and then fighting the number one pound-for-pound fighter in the world

who we all sort of acknowledged, one, that was a 50-50 odds-on fight. And we all were like, maybe this is the goat fight. This might just be the fight between the goats right here. And she dominated that fight. And my last case, the last thing that I just want to point out, I told this on BTL and other stuff when I first sort of outlined my position here, Mike, is it's not like the Monon Fior when aged poorly. Manon didn't go fight her next fight and barely lose.

She slaughtered Yasadavishishish. Like, Manon is the number one contender, and she beat her comfortably. Zhang Wili is maybe the best female fighter on the planet. She's not because Valentina exists, but other outside of Valentina is the number one pound for pound fighter. Many people, Mike included, were picking her to go not just win, but to win big. And Val cooked her on paper, set aside the enjoyment factor you had. Nobody, nobody accomplished more than Valentina Shepchenko did this year, where she very possibly established herself as the greatest female fighter to ever live. that's why she was number one on my ballot

and I think it is unconscionable to leave her off entirely AK we are civil you are the Prince of positivity we're all friends here you show the M.A fighting logo your thoughts on this and look you're looking at this from a little bit of a different perspective

right because we have our own votes and all that but you're you're the face that runs the place here you run the ship here you're the the vote tabulator in all this when it comes to awards and not just that, the MA fighting rankings. Like, these are not easy jobs that you're doing trying to keep track of this.

What is your reaction to this? As someone who, you know, look, you want us to have our individual sage and you want us to, like, have our beliefs. But at the same token, like, this is, this is wild. Like, this is simply wild. Like, this single-handedly caught, like, at worst, if he votes, he voted for Hamza Chabayev here.

If he gives the number, the five points to Valentina, her and Islam are co-fighters of the year. And honestly, like, that is not a, like, that's fine. But leaving her off this list altogether, I don't, I don't get it. I really don't get it. But looking through your shoes as someone who's kind of running all of this, what's your reaction to it? Yeah, look, nothing but the greatest respect for Damon.

Like, I know, I know the more we have to say it, people are probably thinking, like, wow, they must really be annoyed by Damon's voting. It's like, yeah, we don't agree. I think, I think Jed has outlined it. I'm not going to go over all of just points. Jed pretty much outlined every reason why I agree. I think it's almost indefensible the way Damon's ballot turned out. But at the same time, I don't want to police people's voting too much, right?

So we said early in the show, we don't do a pre-year-end power. We do a short list. We kind of ask everyone, oh, was there anything that we forgot off the list? That's really it. Because we don't want to have a meeting where we say, hey, guys, like, to avoid us as a collective, to avoid the website looking ridiculous, let's all agree this. this name, this knockout, this submission involved, this fight, has to be on the list. That's a slippery slope to me.

Going forward, we may do that. I will say, 2026, maybe because of this controversy, the president has now been set where we have to do that. And I'm not against the idea. But you guys at home, you guys in the comments, let us know because I do be like, you're against it. So just against it. I don't think we should. I think that it is probably valid to at least have a conversation. not like a specific but like a hey and you know kind of we did we talked about some stuff

at various points like there are always conversations going but like i'm with you i don't think we should please people's ballots and so at the end of the day like we just have to take this and that's okay even though i think it straight up just looked bad i like i believe that this is bad this is a tough one because you know we say we we don't have meetings for the reason that we're like some things to us seem obvious. Like this is not even something unless we had a meeting. It's something like we wouldn't even feel the need to bring up, right? Like none of us would go like, oh, by the way, guys, let's make sure Valentina's on the ballot.

Like it would just be unsaid. Like we would all, that's why we don't have these meetings. Generally, generally that you, we don't see something like this. So I do, I do want to play. I said because Damon's not here. And I hope I'll suggest this to him later. You know, he has guys, I hope you're listening to Fighter versus Writer with him at Matt Brown every week.

I hope he maybe takes 10 minutes. missed beginning of his next episode before he starts talking to Matt. Just record a little thing. And real quick, I don't mean to step, I don't mean to step on your toes. I can. I'm going to let you finish. Just so you know, just so we're on the same page here, like I said, Dave was supposed to come on.

He literally said, like, say whatever you got to say. Like, he's not, you know, it's not a thing where it's like, never shot away from a fight. Never, yeah, never. He's a man. He's like, hey, I may not be able to make it, but if I don't, like, feel free to trash me, say whatever you need to say. So he is, he knows. this is coming, this is not a sneak attack by any way, shape, or form. But, AK, I turn it over

to you. And we're not going to do that. We're not going to try. Like I said, I'm not here to trash Damon. Damon's our guy, man. Like I said, Damon has his own opinions. I never, the last thing I'd ever want is for any of us to say, as Jets said, he disagrees to, the idea that we all saying, well, our ballots have to look at least somewhat like this. Because that just kind of defeats the whole purpose of it, right? You, again, you would hope there wouldn't be an egregious omission that you feel like 98% of the MMA community would disagree with. like you would hope that doesn't happen but this is when you allow

individuality right this is what we're so at that I don't take much offense to it I will say I Jed you just did an amazing job breaking it down I'm glad you like said you've kind of cooled off from when this first came to light for you even yesterday even I will say even

the day before we're recording this episode I was setting up for like a holiday gathering and Jed was messaging me and I almost kind of had to tell the people I was like setting stuff up with like guys have to pause We have a I have a friend who's in crisis right now that's almost I he was still so kind of like jarred as I so I had to like step aside give jet a little vesting time because it was it it it does feel strange again so I will play Damon's advocate very quickly I think if you want to look at Kayla Harrison being included because it is sort of this culmination of her journey to UFC champion which I guess is building for a long time it was a finish if you want to credit if you guys want to credit finishes more than decisions I don't necessarily do that, and I certainly wouldn't in the case of Valentina and two wins.

I actually think her two decision wins over Menon and Ajang are more impressive than what Kayla did. Not that what Kayla did isn't impressive, because no matter what you think of Juliana Pena, whether you like her or not, personality-wise, where you think she's a good fighter or not, that was a high-stakes fight. Juliana does have some big wins, and Kayla finished her, as she was supposed to, right? She was a pretty big favorite. So I do give credit to Kayla for taking care of business. So if you want to include it for that reason, there's that. Why did he include Shemayev? Again, same story with Kayla, this sort of undefeated.

I mean, Kayla's not undefeated, but you know what I mean? Essentially, Bude is undefeated, this monster fighter, finally making the top of the mountain, finally doing what they're supposed to become champion. So those, I think, are where Damon is coming from. I know he doesn't think much of the competition at women's 125 and below. So, again, mileage may vary there. That is just my, again, it's not my.

opinion i'm just playing damon's advocate he does not think much of um the lighter women's weight classes he doesn't think much of women's ban to weight either i don't think um but again maybe he just views it as like well uh you know i'm having trouble defending it because again i'm not i'm not him and i don't agree with this but that cala's dominant quote unquote dominant win was more impressive than von tina's dominant win over jang because jang was smaller this is just his reasoning uh some parts of his reasoning not his whole case so um again i just wanted to put it out there There's, there's, like, thoughts there that I'm sure some people would agree with. I'm not one of them.

I'm not one of them. But since he's not here, I do feel like it's fair at a point out of this. And that's the thing, you're not wrong. And, AK, when you said that, like, I was in crisis, I was in crisis because I was talking to Damon. Like, I, this wasn't like I was stewing mad. Like, I had said something and then he, he and I started talking. And as he defended his position, it got even less tenable to me. His arguments for why were not sound to me.

They were competing against his arguments for why not for others because, like, okay, like, hey, all right, I get it. You peyote on at a great year, and so did the Mokachev. Kayla Harrison fought once against the fighter you think is bad. How is that? Well, she finished her. Okay, well, Hamzaa didn't finish Drickis. Exactly.

No, but like she was a dominant champion. It's like, okay, Zhang is a dominant champion and the Monong fight. Yeah, but I was bored. I'm sorry, did you watch the Hamza fight? That fight is pretty boring, man. It's, it's, they all, there are pieces and individually you can make the argument. And I would even be open to the like, she kind of bores me, okay. Like that's, you don't have to put her at number one.

but like because you find her boring and you may be critical of her opposition or whatever like those those are credible arguments to doc somebody's you know standing in it but to completely invalidate on paper obviously good wins is it's indefensible and i think it's a very bad look to do because these are whether you think the opposition is good or not those wins are good wins like they and whether they were boring or not they're boring I ain't here to tell you

Valentina Shepchenko should be the most exciting fighter at 2025 that would be a lie but what she accomplished because an argument I the last argument I sort of made on this point is like if if the grading scale

is whether I'm entertained by it I would not have ranked Marab I find Marab tedious but it would have been ludicrous to deny his accomplishments this year, even with the loss. So it, all of it kind of makes sense. And if it was one of them, like, if, if this was a debate on you ranked Hamzaa Chima, who had one fight this year and that fight was widely trashed as garbage, and you

ranked him, I at least could swallow that one better. If that was the number five and the other four were like pretty obvious, right? And you're just kind of playing with that number. because you look at our ballots, right? Mike, you mean A.K., we have the same five people. And that doesn't, like you said, we don't need to be uniform here, but Jose has four of the same five. Gierme has four of the same five.

Damon goes off the board twice, and it's really bad. And honestly, I don't know that he would ever say this. I don't know that this is maybe this is a subconscious thing. It feels to me like when Casey used to, just get a, get a notion, and he was going to die on that hill. And like, Siki Zawa is the number one pound for pound fighter in the world, and I'm going, and he got a notion in his head, I don't like Valentina Shepchenko because she's boring.

I'm not going to do this. And he dug his feet in, and that is his right. It's also my right to be like, my brother, you are objectively false to not acknowledge her accomplishment. You don't have to like her accomplishment. God knows, I didn't like any of Marabs. You have to acknowledge it. Yeah, you didn't include either of Maraub's fights on your fight of the year list, right?

We should know, like that's, yeah, you did not. But you still included him on your fight of the year, fighter of the year ballot. You know, I will say, not only include him, he's number three on my list. And I don't like him. You made it very clear. You, you've hated his fighting style for years. For years. But like I, what he accomplished is what he accomplished.

You can't. You can't, like, separate those two things. And so that, I'm no longer mad at Damon. I was mad at Damon. I'm disappointed. Oh, no. That's where I'm at now. Oh, that's worse.

That's so much worse. I, uh, I do think it's a shame that it's almost like Valentina's getting punished for how dominant she was over Zhang because it did expose how much bigger and stronger she was. Like if that had been a back and forth more competitive battle and Zhang had looked better, would, would Damon and other people have viewed that differently? Like, one, of course, it would have been a more exciting fight. but two would that have what they have said oh clearly jang can compete at 125 and valentine had to reach down deep to pull out a win what a what a performance by the defending champion and like it's weird because she like for me it's like the fact that she was so dominant is so impressive and like you said jed that's why we should have to have her on the list it would not have changed for me if it had been a more competitive fight and she'd still want she probably would just be number one and gone from number one to number one so that she is being punished for how easy she made that fight look it feels like yeah it's a minute it's a minute right maybe listen valentina to me is just the automatic default based on where we were like three

months ago because it was supposed to be maraub it was it was it was supposed to be marab 100 it was supposed to be marab the last really like he was the guy without question if marab were to lose at least in our eyes the only guy who could take it maybe islam could have got it was josh van and the way he won the belt like it just he had a finishing number five he went four and oh from unranked to champion and he finished number five like it's just because of the way he won the belt

like it's a legit win but we learn nothing from it we just learned that hey you're great at catching a man's foot and dumping him on his elbow you know what that's a legit win pentosia should have gone for the for the jumping ninja kick that's what we learned about that flight

gotta learn from left drop from let's right I just feel good though at least I do feel like our list we got the five right and it feels so weird to like say that Islam being number one at least like the way the voting turned it is controversial because he's the best fighter in the world he is the number one fighter in the world like I think we've acknowledged you know who the other best fighter in the world is Dante is churchenko so we got it right in that like it's the two top film fighters yeah yeah and back to what I said at the very beginning right and this is why I cooled off yesterday I was pretty fiery yesterday because again I think it's insane this

is the outcome I thought. I thought Val would be number two to Makachev because I am surprised that both of you, I knew Mike had already told me. Yeah, I think I'm actually going to put Valentin Strachanga number one. I was surprised you did, AK, I'm glad that you did. You know, I just follow everything you do, Jeff. We know this. I appreciate that. I look up to you. That is a bad choice on your part. But like I, I felt very confident in the five. to me this was a five-horse race and nobody else was involved in part because like I'm

Michael Morales is the only fighter on our mention list who I was like oh I didn't really consider him and I don't think I would have because frankly he probably would deserve it more but I might have put like Walter Cretza Costa as my number six but I was like

these are just the five they're clear to me they were clearly the five because Maraub de Valishvili was the front runner and then you knock him he did lose a fight but it was a great fight and you know he was he dared to be great he so you knock him some in the same way that Alabama you know got moved to a lower seed in the college football playoffs they they fought they played in the sity championship of the loss but you don't totally remove his year because even with that loss on paper a great year

the umar win is sensational uh the cori sanagan win is very good and he finished Sean O'Malley so that wins that's that's a great year you keep him there Islam Val we've talked plenty about pjordian mentioned him already and then Josh van to me those five of the five and that's why it's like okay maybe you maybe for your number five spot you mix something in you do something different you're a little wacky you don't do it twice when they're so clearly five people who elevated themselves in the year they accomplished in my mind yeah and you don't do it for two fighters who fought once because outside of Damon doing this specifically, I'll tell all of you. As long as I'm at this website, as long as I'm

on this panel, I will never give fighter of the year to somebody who competed once. I simply will not do it. It does not matter what that win is. If the ghost of Demetrius Johnson returns to the UFC and he fights Tom Aspinall and beats him, he's not going to get fighter of the year unless he fights at least one more time. It does not matter because it's not the fighter of the one event. it is the fighter of the year you must do stuff all year long the only like honestly when when i there are some things that i was not going to be surprised about this obviously is shocking for a number of reasons um i was like there's only going to be seven names on the fighter of the year list and one of those fighters to me was one of the fighters who fought once if you're going to give

anybody and i wouldn't do this either but if you're going to give any of these guys in the honorable mention a shout who only it's ily it's poor you he has an argument. I wouldn't do it, but he does have an argument. He has. Jose doing that I'm okay with. I'm fine with it because he won the belt and the toughest division in all in the entire sport. He vacated. He was already championed. He dumped it, moved up to 155. Did he beat the best lay way in the world, though? But he had the most impactful moment of the year, in my opinion. And he won the toughest title in the sport in my humble opinion. And that to me is more

impactful than any than Kayla's win who, by the way, Tabor is a big favorite, but she wasn't, wasn't a minus 900 favorite like Kayla was. And Hobbsot, you know, it was a good win for Humzaa, but like, again, we don't, we want to like brush that aside. Like, we're just, we're ready to run ahead. We don't want to go back and rewatch that. We'll go back and rewatch the entire bill to Ilya, knocking out Charles Olivera because it was incredible. Like, all of it was incredible. It was like a game changing moment in the sport. That's why that was so impactful. It's just such a weird list. Like, and honestly, the other name, I think the only other name

that I think should even be in consideration is Waldo. Is Waldo going forward? I don't like the Michael Morales inclusion. I'm kind of with Guy on that. Just as a shout out of like, oh, I hadn't even,

I didn't even consider him realistically. I like Geese list. I like the Barales one. Him leaving Van off was a little shocking. But again, it's the number five spot. He also lets Van Off breakthrough fighter of the year. I say, I messaged you that yesterday. But here's the thing.

I can I can accept that and you know why I can accept that because I didn't talk to gee about this I'm going to guarantee you it's yeah man had the title win been better both of these would have been true but I don't know how to rate that it doesn't feel like a win and so he has the belt but if you do if you do just kind of view the Pantosia win as a nothing as a no contest even though that's not what it is but we understand the inclination to kind of view it as like a eh whatever Then his year's not. It's, you know, it's like it's a good year. He beat Brandon Reval. He still probably should be on the fighter or the breakthrough fighter of the year, even if it's just beating Reval. But like, I can understand that. I can grasp that, especially when you're talking about the fifth place spot on fighter

of the year. That's so, and I honestly, I liked that because like, oh, I didn't even consider Michael Morales. And Michael Morales had a really good year. He did. So shouts to him in this position because he got the four big ones. would Josh Van be in kind of an odd ball, right? Like, we all can acknowledge it's a little odd.

I would like to ask you both the question that I've been pondering. I was pondering in my rankings, and you can see how I ultimately did it, but fairly split with one person not even ranking him. How did y'all come to your decision of the Peodorian versus Morab Balasvili ranking for this year? Yeah. Because I struggled with it, honestly.

And you see, Jose left him off and left, Peotter off entirely. Damon left Marab off entirely. I think I disagree with both of those calls, frankly, but like I can understand an argument there, I guess. The Marab one I think is bad. I think that's worse than the Peyodor one oddly, but y'all also did this. You both had Peyodor ranked higher than you had Marab. Is that just because the head to head? Like, how did you gauge that? Because Peotter 5 owed him, in my opinion. So like to be like, and I know he dared, you know, Marab went and try to do something cool and again like like you said this is the alabama thing for me this is like you know it's it's ultimately on on him like when you when you take that risk

everything that's on you you put everything on the line you put fighter of the year on the line you put your title on the line whatever happens happens it's just like volkadovsky fighting islam machochev for the second time i don't care if it's a weak notice when you get on a microphone you say i'm going to go out there and smash this dude even if it's on a week notice this will not be an excuse, you can then no longer use it as an excuse. Yeah, he fought four times. But he said it's not an excuse. I'm going to go smoke this fool and then I'm going to go and fight three times again in 26. He lost. He lost. There are no excuses. That's it. So Jan gets it, but I'm not going to talk him too much. He deserves to be on this list. But Jan, I, honestly, my biggest conundrum with

Jan was do I rank him higher than Islam? That was honestly. They had, they had comparable resumes. Yon's title win to me is a hundred billion times more impactful than Islam's. Islam did it in a second division and he took a huge risk so I have to put that in I have to put that in the conversation

and then I have to like what will be remembered to take. Yeah. What will be remembered more? Islam's Welterweight title win or Jan's Bannonway title win. Islam's going to win this one. It's at MSG. It's just a more impactful win. But Jan's performance was better and it meant more

more because JDM, while he had the welterweight belt, and he was a true champion, there were a lot of people who did not feel he was the best Walter weight in the world. Everyone knew Maraba's the best Bantamweight in the world. There are many people who already deemed him the greatest bantam weight ever of all time, the goat, the greatest of all time in the history of that weight class. And Yon went in there and smoked him. I thought he won all five rounds, and I didn't even think it's like a debate. I think he won all five rounds against the greatest bantamweight ever.

So to me, that, like, I weighed that so much. The determining factor was impact, and how do I rate the second wins for each guy? Because I got to tell you, Hidotamai Kano, I have, like, there was a part of me that's like, I might rank the Marcus McGee win more than the Hanata Moikano win. I just might, because I think, like, I think McGee's good, and I think he will eventually probably be like a top seven-ish guy at 135. I think he can get there. He is talented.

He needs some bigger, some tougher competition. I think he's going to take a ton away from this Jan boss. He won around against Piotriyan. He went out there and like, he was very competitive with Yon. Hanato, we knew Hanato had no chance to beat Islam. None. It was like the boat, you could not, you could not put on a piece of paper a worse matchup for Hanato Moikano in the world than Islamakachev. So that was like the conundrum.

was the, honestly, the toughest decision I had to make. Is Jan number two or is Islam number two? Because Valentina, to me, was the default number one after Josh Van won the belt the way he did. And after Jan won the Bannamway title, I'm like, by default, it's Valentina just based on what your criteria is. And to me, it was just, is it, is it, is I'm in the silver medal spot. And I struggle with that.

Ultimately, I landed with Islam because the impact of doing it at 322, winning a second belt, the year he had vacating. all of it the drama behind the 315 fight like islam machochev made jd mbala bigger without even fighting without even being in the building so to me by like i knows i gave it to islam okay is that why you was that sort of why you went yon over marab i i battled back and forth it was very difficult decision for me yeah it's that thing we talk about we're we sometimes punish fighters for silly reasons right we're essentially punishing marab for making this fight happen for you know being being available for this fight to happen in December

as opposed to getting pushed to January February, right? Because if it's just Marab 3 and O, I'm done for the year I'm not defending until 2026. Piority on's waits for him. Rob probably still our fighter of the year. Peerreryon doesn't even make the list, right? It's just because, but again, but the fight

happened. We can't rule it out. And period of fantastic. He won my, essentially my fight of the year. This was my fight of the year, right? This shows been going on for 10 hours. I've forgotten my But one of my top five fights of the year, Marab won. Sorry, excuse me, Peotryon won. There we go.

There it is. And that matters to me. That certainly counts. He stole his story. It shouldn't work that way. And it wouldn't be that way for everyone, right? It's not like anyone can just come in. And if they'd beat Maraub, oh, hey, well, now you're the fight of the year.

Or you're now you take his spot in the fighter of the U.S. That's not necessarily the case. But I think Pioter Jan, the McGee one was really good. That's, you know, that's just a little extra on the side. but because we built it up so much as like oh this is marab he's locking it down as the fighter of the year if he wins this the greatest band to wait of all time if he wins this and pyrion so definitively stopped that man it just did not feel right to put marab over him and it sucks because marab won three title fights this year and they were all good ones i mean

impressive performances the first the umar fight one of my favorite fights the year omali fight omali fight more dominant than the first time we fought o'malley and then san an another really, really good fight. Like, these were not bad. There was not a stinker in there where you were like, eh, this was forgettable and whatever. Workman-like decision win for Marab. No, man, he looked, he showed different facets of these fights.

He looked good. He was facing tough competition. All the top contenders, top five. I don't know where we recommend. They're all top five. I think Sanhagan O'Malley and Umar, you had to say they're all top five when you fought them. So it seems so unfair. But head-to-head matters.

You know, reality matters, what we saw happen. And Peodor Yan, as of now, is a better fighter than Marab. Will they fight again? Probably. Can Marov win? for sure has a chance to win the trilogy but right now peyote yon the man and his reward is just a a slight bump ahead in our 2025 list yeah i just wasn't sure how to do it i i ultimately looked at it as marab has the best of the wins of the five wins marab is the best or not marab

sorry piota is the best maraub's three other wins are better much better than the marcus McGee and I was like, okay, well, I think we'll go there, but, you know, and obviously Jose agrees, he still had Marabas his number one thing. It was, he made it very tricky because I don't know that I've ever voted for a fighter of the year lost before. But the rest of the year was so strong. Like, how do you, how do you not? And so it was a weird one this year, but didn't do Pereira win Fighter of the year after you lost the middleweight title? Oh, no, that's Sean Strickland, but there are a lot of people to vote for Barrera. Yeah, but Sean

and Sean Strickland had lost in December so he had not lost that year, um, for five of the year. But Pereira got knocked up by Izzy and then won the light, heavy weight bell at the end of the year. I remember. I may have voted for Pereira that year that still, he didn't win it, but I may have in fact voted.

So I guess there's that, but like, yeah, Strickland won it was just a weird year. It was a little bit of a weird year in that. The way you said it, Mike, I think is right. I voted Val. I think Val, to win, it was a little bit of a default, which is somewhat disrespectful because on paper it's a great year, but that is the story of Valentina Shibchenko, arguably the most dominant champion in the past 15 years that we all just sort of don't care about because she's so

dominant over everybody she ever fights that it's just like, whatever, we assume greatness will happen and so um maybe it's more fitting that way and i certainly think the viewers are probably like yeah it's is a mockachev why what the hell's going on and i don't think this will age poorly right like i think in five years we'll look back and like yeah 2025 was islam's year that seems right and val had it was it was a great year but yeah um contentious one this year boys for sure uh i'm I'm still stunned by all of this I think we don't do this

but we don't have to like do a whole article or anything but can we just can we just anoint can we crown Valentina Shepchenko the MMA fighting female fighter of the year for the sake of what's fair and just of course of course okay she's the female congratulations we should do that

not to do it for other categories because I think that would be a bit silly to do like women's knockout of the year I don't think that's necessary but I do kind of think maybe we should do female fighter of the year but alas that would be for a future year well let us know in the comments

then all of this would not be a matter at all I mean it still would because she wouldn't be unanimous because Kayla would be to have a first place bro which is absolutely insane absolutely wild but who knows Kayla goes out there and beats Amanda Nunes and gets another win

then she'll probably be maybe she'll be the inaugural female fighter of the year. So we are, I think you guys spent enough time with us. So hopefully if you had long drives, we got you to where you needed to go.

And that's, you're about to hear the music here. But, Jed, any final words for the peeps before we get on out of here? No, man. It has been a heck of a year,

a mic heck of a year, some might even say. I've had a wonderful time doing this show with y'all. more to come obviously the write-ups for all of our stuff will be dropping in the next few days we will also have a a sort of best of the rest for those sorts of awards that we didn't cover here the more fun categories take of the year we might be going to one of our very own as a result of some of the things that have happened here today but it's been a great time and it was a very

very solid year not the best year if you listen to a festivist you know wasn't the highest year, but I feel good about where all our awards ended up, even if the road to get there maybe wasn't what I expected or even what I respect in some regards. AK. Yeah, man, we nailed it. We nailed it as we do every year. Yeah, I think if people just look at the top who the winners were, for the most part, who were the top three in each category.

I just don't see how there can be much room for debate. Ignore the voting. Don't worry about the individual voting. You know, I may not even include those in the, in the, post maybe maybe we avoid this because uh after we'll listen to the show i'm sure they'll have a reaction and by some chance we'll didn't listen to the show and they end up uh you know digging deeper and seeing those ballots themselves and have some free time in their hands might not be too happy with some of us but uh we're not worried about that guys we stay positive it was been a fun year

really fun like i said most importantly to look back on some of these awesome moments and awesome story lines we had and yes there will be plenty more of that on themmaflying.com so stay locked in well final words for me first of all thank you gentlemen it's an honor and a privilege to be on your team. And I think I speak for everybody. We are the luckiest people in the world that we get to do this for all of you, the best community of fans in MMA and in all of sports, in my humble opinion. None of this is possible without you. And we appreciate you so, so much. From all of us at MMA fighting, thank you for the support all year long. And it is truly my hope. And I'm sure I speak for everybody else. Our hope that you have the best holiday ever, whatever it is you celebrate, that you

enjoy the rest of 2025 and that 2025 wraps up in the absolute best possible way. So my name is Mike Heck, that was A.K., that is Jed Bishu, and this has been MMA Fighting's 2025 award show. Good night, everybody. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network.

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