Tag: Rankings/List

2014 saw fight card after fight card after fight card—almost to the point of tiring some fans out on the product, but having relentless events at least gives us finishes.

MMA certainly gave us plenty of fantastic knockouts this year, but which was the best?

Determining a year-end list like this is very unscientific and has no set criteria. Do the more violent knockouts rank higher, or do knockouts in fights that meant more go to the top of the list? It’s a judgment call.

You will see a mixture of both on this list. Circumstances helped elevate some KOs, while it hurt others. The UFC dominates this list, but there is one knockout featured from a promotion other than the sport’s leader. The list also features knockouts in two title fights.

Without further ado, here are your top 10 knockouts of 2014. Here’s hoping 2015 keeps delivering moments that make us leap out of our chairs.

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Folks, it was a good year for finishes in MMA. This was especially the case for submissions, as audiences were dazzled by some awesome finishes on the ground.

We saw kimuras, bulldog chokes, neck cranks, triangle armbars and everything in between. It made it very tough to narrow down the best tapouts of 2014, but we’ve come to a conclusion here.

So, what were the 10 best submissions of the year? Let’s take a look now at the masterpieces we were given.

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It was a wild and wooly year for MMA in 2014. But now it’s over.

We missed a lot of fighters this year, and saw some great performances from newcomers. In 2015, we fans are going to welcome back some new and familiar faces and look forward to seeing who can keep their momentum rolling.

Here are fighters we’re most excited to see in the coming year, ranked by excitement level. Although that may seem like a subjective measurement, it’s not. No argument allowed. Thanks in advance.

 

 

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2013 gave us some of the best fights of all time in Jones vs. Gustafsson and Melendez vs. Sanchez, but 2014 was plagued with injuries for the UFC. Despite being hit with so many injuries and fight cancellations, the year featured some standout performances in MMA.  

Matt Brown and Robbie Lawler put on a five-round brawl in July.  Brown also had an epic scrap with the ultra-talented Erick Silva, and Lawler was involved in a close, all-time great welterweight title fight with Johny Hendricks.  

The very first main event of the year for the UFC between Tarec Saffiedine and Hyun Gyu Lim was a wild fight as well.  And who can forget about the slugfest between Abel Trujillo and Jaime Varner at UFC 169?  

Even though there was a lot of bad news in 2014, a few fighters put it all on the line and had some great encounters inside the cage.  

Let us take a look back at the 10 best fights of 2014.  

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In MMA, a fighter can go from the top of the world to the bottom of the barrel in a split second. One hard punch, and that’s it. So when looking at an individual fighter and how things have gone for them over the course of a long, difficult 12 month span…things can go from bad to worse to terrible. 

That in mind, the snapshot of MMA, from a competitive, coaching and promotional standpoint, is radically different now than it was a year ago.

So, in an already-ugly 2014, who wound up taking the biggest hits? Whose stock dipped the lowest? Whose stardom has faded the most?

Click on to find out.

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