Make your pick for the 2018 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 2018. There will be a total of eight different categories you’ll be asked to vote on. For the sake of simplicity we’re going to stick with high-level and relevant MMA stuff in these posts. While I’m sure there was a ludicrous knockout in an unscheduled MMA event at The Lumberyard strip club in Des Moines, or an insane pancreas lock submission on an obscure ZST! card in Japan, let’s just stick to stuff a lot of us have seen, okay? (If that spiel looked familiar, it’s because I’ve used the same one for eight years in a row. Originality? What originality?)
It’s pretty simple. I’ll post 5-10 options in a category, you vote for what you think was the best. If you think I left something really important off my list, post it in the comments and we can add it to the poll if it’s deemed worthy. I can almost guarantee you won’t like all my suggestions, but narrowing down these lists is tough.
Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s get onto the fifth poll – the best event of the year. 2018 was a banner year for great top-to-bottom events, so this might be a tougher choice than expected.
Before that though, if you haven’t yet, go back and vote on the first two categories – Best Submission, Biggest Robbery, Biggest Upset, and Newcomer of the Year.
UFC 228 – The card didn’t exactly draw well, but was full of great action. Two Suloev Stretch finishes, six other finishes, and a second-round finish of an undefeated fighter in the main event.
UFC on Fox 29 – The six-bout Fight Pass card featured three finishes, but business really picked up when things moved to TV. Three out of four fights were finished on the Fox prelims, and the main card featured one of the fights of the year when Dustin Poirier took out Justin Gaethje.
UFC 224 – Only two of the 13 fights on the card went to a decision, and one was a very good co-main event. At one point there were nine straight finishes, and a lot of them were nice. Amanda Nunes topped off the night with a fifth-round finish of Raquel Pennington.
Bellator 198 – All five main card fights finished early. In fact, there was less than 11 minutes of fighting in a two-hour show. But Nieman Gracie, Rafael Lovato, Dillon Danis, and Fedor Emelianenko all picked up impressive wins on an impressive card.
UFC 229 – Everyone will remember the spectacle of Conor McGregor vs. Khabib Nurmagomedov. But it’s easy to forget the FOTY candidate between Tony Ferguson and Anthony Pettis, a huge comeback by Derrick Lewis, and a gaggle of undercard KO/TKOs.
UFC 232 – Recency bias? Maybe. But ten finishes, including four on the main card, made the event EOTY worthy. Uriah Hall’s huge comeback win, Ryan Hall’s sick heel hook, great performances by Petr Yan and Alexander Volkanovski, and three big fights and finishes on top made this one to remember.