As 2014 winds down, and we look to what the future might hold in 2015 for mixed martial arts, the pack starts to thin in the race for “Fighter of the Year,” and so far it’s down to two men: Robbie Lawler and Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone.
UFC champions have not been particularly active this year. Cain Velasquez will only have one fight in 2014, the same goes for Jon Jones, Chris Weidman and Anthony Pettis. Johny Hendricks, Jose Aldo and Demetrious Johnson will have each fought twice by the time the year is over, and bantamweight champion T.J. Dillashaw has fought three times.
You could make a case for Ronda Rousey as Fighter of the Year due to the dominance in her two victories in 2014, which took a total of 1:22. There have been a lot of fighters who have been more active than the current group of UFC champions over the past year, and two in particular have stood out from the rest.
Robbie Lawler’s first fight of 2014 was against Johny Hendricks for the vacant UFC welterweight title at UFC 171 in March. He rallied back from being down two rounds, and won the third and the fourth round on all three judges scorecards. It was tied going into the fifth and final round.
The round itself was a microcosm of the larger fight as a whole, as it was super close with Hendricks just barely pulling away with a takedown at the end of the round that he was able to use to keep Lawler down just long enough to win the decision.
After the close fight with Hendricks, Lawler rebounded with a third-round TKO win over Jake Ellenberger in May, where he outstruck Ellenberger for the first two rounds, and late in the third a devastating knee to the body of Ellenberger and a left hook from Lawler put him away.
He followed that up with his five-round battle with the hard-nosed Matt Brown in the main event of UFC on Fox 12. Two impressive victories and a close loss in a title fight might be enough to declare “Ruthless” the Fighter of the Year, but the fact that he has earned a second title fight that will also be taking place before the year is up is even more impressive.
If Lawler takes the title from Hendricks on December 6, a new UFC welterweight champion would be hard to argue as the Fighter of the Year.
We don’t know exactly what the end of 2014 will look like for Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone just yet. He has been insisting since January that he wants to fight six times this year. He could wait and potentially fight for the lightweight title or in a top-contender fight with Khabib Nurmagomedov when he returns in early 2015. But Cerrone has said that he wants to stay active and fight again ASAP.
His 2014 offensive on the UFC 155-pound weight-class has been remarkable thus far. He kicked the year off with a first-round head-kick knockout of Adriano Martins at UFC on Fox in January.
Three months later he returned to action, where he engaged in a two-minute Muay Thai battle with Edson Barboza before jumping on his back and choking him out.
He finished Jim Miller twice in July. In the main event of UFC Fight Night Atlantic City, Cerrone caught Miller with a shot to the body that had Miller looking to the ref to save him. Mistaking it for a low blow, referee Dan Miragliotta briefly haulted the action and the resumed it. Cerrone then officially put Miller away with a head kick and some punches.
Two months after that, Cerrone had the daunting task of welcoming Eddie Alvarez to the UFC. Alvarez was thought to be one of the very best lightweights in the world, and would finally have a chance to prove it in the UFC. Cerrone defeated Alvarez by unanimous decision.
Four wins, three finishes, and the intention of fighting again within the next two months. Cerrone has set the bar pretty high for the fighter of 2014.
If Robbie Lawler starts off 2015 holding the UFC welterweight title, then he will be the year’s fightingest fighter, but if not, Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone will reign supreme.
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