Make your pick for the best fighter of the first half of 2019 in Bloody Elbow’s Half-Year Awards.
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 first half of 2019. With these being half-year awards, there will be an abbreviated number of categories – five to be exact.
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 nine years in a row. Originality? What originality?)
It’s pretty simple. I’ll post 5 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.
Our fourth category will be best fighter. Six months isn’t a lot to work with from a career perspective, but some combatants make the most of their time. Here are five that did their best over the first half of 2019.
Israel Adesanya – He went to a decision with Anderson Silva but picked up the win. Then picked up a gutsy decision win over Kelvin Gastelum in one of the fights of the year to claim the interim UFC middleweight title.
Henry Cejudo – First off, he shocked everyone by stopping T.J. Dillashaw in under a minute. Then he followed it up by stopping Marlon Moraes to become a champ champ. He’s out for the rest of the year, but that’s a helluva six months.
Kyoji Horiguchi – I’m cheating a bit here because he beat Darrion Caldwell the first time on New Years Eve. He came back and stopped Ben Nguyen in the first round. Then went to enemy territory and took home a Bellator belt by defeating Caldwell again.
Jorge Masvidal – I think you know what he’s done by now. Knocked out Darren Till. Knocked out Ben Askren in five seconds. Coined the phrase “three piece with a soda”. Solid start to the year.
Jack Hermansson – He started the year by submitting high-level black belt David Branch. Then stepped in on short notice and defeated Jacare Souza. Suddenly he’s in the middleweight title picture, seemingly out of nowhere.