Make your pick for the 2017 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 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 fifth poll – the best event of the year. 2017 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 218 – This isn’t just recency bias -it was definitely one of the best events of the year. Nine of the 13 fights were finished before the final horn, including all four fights on the Fight Pass card. Yancy Medeiros and Alex Oliveira engaged in a brutal war, as did Eddie Alvarez and Justin Gaethje. Francis Ngannou nearly punched Alistair Overeem to the moon, and then Max Holloway capped off a great night with a TKO win over a spirited Jose Aldo.
UFC Fight Night 116 – This was a minor event in Pittsburgh with just ten fights, but only two went to decision. The last five fights were all finishes, and included a vicious knee KO by Mike Perry, and Luke Rockhold overwhelming David Branch in the headliner.
UFC on Fox 23 – The first Fox show of the year seems so long ago now, but featured an amazing main card. Jason Knight smoked Alex Caceres in the opener. Francis Ngannou took out former champ Andrei Arlovski. Jorge Masvidal surprised Donald Cerrone and stopped him early in the second. And finally, Valentina Shevchenko showed off her ground skills with a surprising armbar win over Julianna Pena.
UFC 217 – Nine finishes in eleven fights, including some pretty violent ones. But this card really shined in the last three fights, which all saw shocking title changes before the final horn. This was the defining show for the promotion this year.
Bellator NYC – Heather Hardy and James Gallagher showed off their skills on the TV card before Ryan Bader won the light heavyweight title. Douglas Lima retained his title in a five-round tactical fight with Lorenz Larkin. Uber-prospect Aaron Pico was finished in 24 seconds in his debut. Michael Chandler got hurt and lost his title to Brent Primus (and fell on his ass). Fedor Emelianenko and Matt Mitrione knocked each other down at the same time before Mitrione got the finish. And Chael Sonnen dominated Wanderlei Silva in the headliner of Bellator’s move to PPV.
UFC on Fox 26 – One of the few events where all the performance bonuses went to undercard fighters, yet all four fights on the main card were great. Josh Emmett’s KO of Ricardo Lamas will be remembered for a long time, and Rafael dos Anjos put himself in place for a welterweight title shot with a dominating win over Robbie Lawler.