Make your pick for the 2020 event of the year in Bloody Elbow’s Year-End Awards.
It’s back!
Over the next few days, Bloody Elbow is going to ask for your opinion on some of the best things that have happened in the MMA world over the course of 2020. There will be a total of eight different categories you’ll be asked to vote on. For the sake of simplicity we’re going to stick with high-level and relevant MMA stuff in these posts. While I’m sure there was a ludicrous knockout in an unscheduled MMA event at The Lumberyard strip club in Des Moines, or an insane pancreas lock submission on an obscure ZST! card in Japan, let’s just stick to stuff a lot of us have seen, okay? (If that spiel looked familiar, it’s because I’ve used the same one for ten years in a row. Originality? What originality? Also, is ZST! even a thing any more?)
It’s pretty simple. I’ll post 5-10 options in a category, you vote for what you think was the best. If you think I left something really important off my list, post it in the comments and we can add it to the poll if it’s deemed worthy. I can almost guarantee you won’t like all my suggestions, but narrowing down these lists is tough.
Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s get onto the fourth poll – the best event of the year. 2020 had some great shows, so this might be a tougher choice than expected.
UFC 246 – The undercard of the first PPV of 2020 was nothing to write home about, with five decisions in six fights. But things picked up on the main card, with three straight submission finishes to kick it off. Holly Holm and Raquel Pennington wasn’t super entertaining, but Conor McGregor made up for it with a 40-second finish of Donald Cerrrone in the main event.
UFC Vegas 4 – Dustin Poirier and Dan Hooker were the highlight of this card, as they went to war in the headliner. But the event featured six other finishes and some really good back-and-forth fights.
UFC 250 – This card alternated between finishes and decisions all night, but some of the finishes were insanely nice. Sean O’Malley crushed Eddie Wineland. Aljamain Sterling’s quick win over Cory Sandhagen was amazing. Cody Garbrandt ended Raphael Assuncao. And Amanda Nunes dominated Felicia Spencer in the headliner.
UFC 256 – It didn’t matter that the top three fights went to a decision, because they were all very entertaining. There were plenty of finishes before that, with signature performances from the likes of Kevin Holland, Ciryl Gane, and the returning Cub Swanson.
UFC 254 – Nine finishes. The only main card fight that went to decision was Robert Whittaker vs. Jared Cannonier, which was very good. And in one of the most anticipated fights of the year, Khabib Nurmagomedov put on an incredible display of grappling while earning a submission win over Justin Gaethje.
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