Bloody Elbow 2017 Year-End MMA Awards – Best Knockout

Make your pick for the 2017 knockout 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 2017. 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 seven years in a row. Originality? What originality?)

It’s pretty simple. I’ll post 5-10 options in a category, you vote for what you think was the best. If you think I left something really important off my list, post it in the comments and we can add it to the poll if it’s deemed worthy. I can almost guarantee you won’t like all my suggestions, but narrowing down these lists is tough.

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s get onto the seventh poll – the best knockout of the year. This is my personal favorite category, and there were so many ridiculous KOs this year that it’s going to be hard to only pick ten. But I did!

Before that though, if you haven’t yet, go back and vote on the first two categories – Best Submission, Biggest Robbery, Biggest Upset, Newcomer of the Year, Event of the Year, and Best Fighter.

John Moraga finishes Magomed Bibulatov, UFC 216

Mike Perry ends Jake Ellenberger with a standing elbow, UFC Fight Night 108 –

Paul Daley’s insane flying knee finish of Brennan Ward, Bellator 170 –

Josh Emmett’s left hook of doom on Ricardo Lamas, UFC on Fox 26 –

Matt Brown’s standing elbow sends Diego Sanchez down fast, UFC Fight Night 120 –

Marlon Moraes crushes Aljamain Sterling with a knee, UFC Fight Night 123 –

Francis Ngannou destroys Alistair Overeem, UFC 218 – Unfortunately there’s no video of this I can post here (post gifs in the comments if you like), but I’m guessing you’ve seen it. Ngannou damn near knocked Overeem’s head off with a left uppercut/hook from hell. The main image in this post gives you an idea of it.

Ricardo Ramos’ spinning elbow KO of Aiemann Zahabi, UFC 217 –

Rose Namajunas makes Joanna Jedrzejczyk tap to strikes, UFC 217 – This doesn’t show the extended beating and Joanna tapping, but shows what led to it.

Edson Barboza’s flying knee KO of Beneil Dariush, UFC Fight Night 106 – I can’t embed this one, but you can actually watch this KO here.