MMA has come a long way. But it hasn’t come that far.
Few things in sports touch off a powder keg of emotion like an old-fashioned beatdown. It’s simultaneously compelling and repelling, frightening and exciting. Lots of visceral stuff mixed up in there.
Here are my picks for the 20 nastiest, most dominant beatdowns in mixed martial arts.
They are not necessarily the goriest, though there will be blood. Oh, there’s blood. And it’s more than just a single flash of leather; it’s sustained dominance. In this case, that dominance tends to come from the striking phase of the game, as I am personally disinclined to measure a beatdown in units of Octagon control. It is a “beat”down, after all, not a “grapple”down.
With that, please enjoy.