The Greatest MMA News Column 12.27.11: Year End Awards

Posted by Dan Plunkett on 12.27.2011

Will Anderson Silva finally lose in the coming year? Will GSP vs. Nick Diaz do a million buys? Will Wanderlei Silva retire? 411's Dan Plunkett gives his 2012 predictions for MMA! Plus a look at his year-end awards, news on Roy Nelson's next fight and more!



Year End Awards

With the curtains coming down on 2011 in a few days, it's time to look back at the year that was. As with every 365-day cycle, 2011 was home to some incredible fights and moments. I'm not going to run through the list of typical awards like "Fighter of the Year" and "Fight of the Year" because 411 will be running special columns for each of those where I'll give my picks. But I've come up with seven more categories in which the winners deserve merit. At the end of all but one of my picks, I'll leave a poll with what I feel are the top nominees for each award for you to vote on. Without further ado, let's get to it.

The Anderson Silva Award for Dominant Performance of the Year: There were a number of high level fights this year that saw one fighter dominate his or her opponent. However, it my mind this award has to go to Jon Jones for his TKO win over ‘Shogun' Rua at UFC 128. Jones absolutely battered Rua from literally seconds into the fight all the way to the finish and as a result won the UFC light heavyweight title. Rua has fought a ton of top fighters over the years, from Ricardo Arona to Lyoto Machida, and nobody was able to handle him the way Jones was.




The Cecil Peoples Award for Worst Judges' Decision: Last year the big winner (or loser, depending on your perspective) was the Nam Phan-Leonard Garcia decision and it wasn't even close. This year the winner isn't quite as clear, but I'm going with Nick Ring's unanimous decision win over Riki Fukuda at UFC 127. The first round was close, but Fukuda clearly won rounds two and three. All three judges scored the fight 29-28 for Nick Ring.




Best Moment of the Year: For me this is really a two horse race; I can only think of two moments to even consider for this award. They are ‘Minotauro' Nogueira's knockout win over Brendan Schaub in his hometown and Tito Ortiz's submission win over Ryan Bader that saved his job. The crowd reaction for both moments was excellent, though the fans in Brazil were considerably more rabid than those in Las Vegas for Tito's win. Partially due to that, I'm going to go with Nogueira's knockout win over Schaub. Nogueira, probably the second greatest heavyweight fighter of all-time, was figured to be done as a top fighter. He was coming off a long layoff from hip surgery and many speculated that he was coming back too quickly because he wanted to fight in Brazil. I expected the younger, faster Schaub to knock Nogueira out. However, it was a very pleasant surprise when the opposite happened, and the crowd went absolutely insane.






Come-From-Behind Win of the Year: Looking back there were some really good come-from-behind wins this year, but for me one stands out above the rest. It was a fight where one fighter looked completely out of the fight and the impending referee's stoppage was merely a formality. It was a fight where that same fighter landed one uppercut that rendered his formerly dominant opponent unconscious. It was Cheick Kongo's comeback knockout of Pat Barry from UFC on Versus 4.




The Matt Serra Award for Upset of the Year: This was a relatively quiet year for MMA upsets. There were no major upsets in title fights, no shocking instances of a grappler knocking out the most feared striker in the sport, but there is one upset that came to mind when I thought of this award: Tito Ortiz's submission of Ryan Bader. Going into the fight I thought Bader had the advantage everywhere the fight went and thought Ortiz's chances of winning were close to zero. But with one punch that dropped Bader and a follow-up guillotine choke he quickly proved a fool out of me.




Round of the Year: There were an uncanny number of great one-round fights in 2011, but I'm going to give this award to a fight that nearly went four full rounds. The first round of Bellator 58's Michael Chandler vs. Eddie Alvarez fight was all action. This was a fight that for a moment looked to be over just 20 seconds in as Chandler had Alvarez hurt, but the Philadelphian came back and hurt Chandler. Right at the bell at the end of the round, Chandler dropped Alvarez yet again. Aside from the stellar first round, the rest of the fight was incredible and both fighters showed a tremendous amount of heart.






Event of the Year: Looking back four events from 2011 stand out to me: UFC 129 from April, UFC 132 from July, UFC 139 from November, and UFC 140 from December. UFC 129 was a great event with a ‘Fight of the Year' candidate in Jose Aldo vs. Mark Hominick, two strong ‘Knockout of the Year' candidates, and some other great fights and stoppages. The main event, however, was quite underwhelming. Starting with the Spike prelims, UFC 132 was a great event. There were four first round knockouts, a first round submission, a solid fight between Dennis Siver and Matt Wiman, and a ‘Fight of the Year' caliber main event between Dominick Cruz and Urijah Faber. UFC 139 had two one minute knockouts on the Spike prelims, a lackluster Stephan Bonnar-Kyle Kingsbury fight, a solid fight between Martin Kampmann and Rick Story, a great performance from Urijah Faber, a very fun fight between Wanderlei Silva and Cung Le, and one of the best fights ever in the main event in Dan Henderson vs. ‘Shogun' Rua. UFC 140 had three first round finishes on the televised prelims, one of the fasted knockouts in company history, a lackluster fight between Brian Ebersole and Claude Patrick, a first round finish from Rogerio Nogeuira, Frank Mir breaking Big Nog's arm in a great one round fight, and a fun main event. You can't go wrong picking any event, but I'm going to pick UFC 139, much of which is due to the strength of the main event.

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Prediction Time

It's that time of the year again. Unless you play it extremely safe, accurately predicting major events in MMA for the next year is nearly impossible. To illustrate that, let's go over the predictions I made for 2011.

1. Georges St-Pierre will fight Anderson Silva. Obviously this didn't come true. Following UFC 126 it looked promising that it would finally take place, but by the time St-Pierre beat Jake Shields the UFC's feelings on the matter changed. Plus, the end of St-Pierre's 2011 was riddled with injuries that will ultimately keep him out of action until late-2012.

2. Jon Fitch will be UFC welterweight champion. This prediction was made assuming the previous prediction would come true and St-Pierre would move to middleweight full time. So because that didn't happen, this didn't even come remotely close to happening, especially after Fitch went to a draw against BJ Penn.

3. This will be Randy Couture's last year fighting. Unless he makes an unforeseen comeback, this came true. However, this was far from a bold prediction, so I can't get much credit.

4. Rashad Evans will fight Quinton Jackson for the light heavyweight title in the second biggest fight of the year. Going into 2011 Evans was slated to fight ‘Shogun' Rua for the light heavyweight title but got injured so he never fought for the belt. Had the injury never occurred it's possible this would have played out this way, but it didn't.

5. Frankie Edgar will finish the year as the lightweight champion. Not an overly bold prediction, especially since I wrote it after his draw with Gray Maynard, but it came true nonetheless.

6. Brock Lesnar and Frank Mir will coach TUF 13. This probably would have happened, but then-champion Cain Velasquez needed shoulder surgery so Brock was matched up with Junior dos Santos (who was the top title contender) for a shot at the belt.

7. Brock Lesnar will rematch with Shane Carwin and lose. Brock got sick again and didn't fight Junior dos Santos, and he'll fight for the first time this year on Friday, so clearly this didn't happen.

8. Dominick Cruz will headline a PPV event against Urijah Faber and win. Again, not very bold, as Urijah was one win away from a title shot at the time of the prediction.

9. Two or three name UFC lightweights will move to featherweight. Kenny Florian, Tyson Griffin, Joe Stevenson, and Ross Pearson all made the cut. There were more than I predicted, but I'm giving myself a point here.

10. Alistiar Overeem will win Strikeforce's heavyweight tournament. Overeem dropped out of the tournament after he couldn't fight in September due to injury, was released by Strikeforce, and then signed with the UFC.

11. Alistair Overeem, Gilbert Melendez and Cyborg Santos will be the only Strikeforce champions to keep their belts throughout 2011. Two out of three ain't bad. Granted, I certainly didn't expect the UFC to buy Strikeforce ultimately resulting in Nick Diaz jumping ship and forfeiting his title. Obviously, Overeem forfeited his title when he went to the UFC, but without his name this prediction was correct.

12. Bellator will run into financial problems. This may have happened and led to their sale to Viacom, but I haven't heard that it did. In fact, word was they were operating at an even cash flow.

13. Alistair Overeem will lose in the K-1 World Grand Prix. This didn't happen because the K-1 World Grand Prix didn't take place.

14. There will be no Dynamite!! Technically this is true, but we still get a New Year's show from DREAM that will essentially be no different from Dynamite!!

15. The UFC will sign Hatsu Hioki. This came true and Hioki made his UFC debut in October with a decision victory over George Roop.

Now that that's out of the way, here are 25 predictions for 2012:
Anderson Silva will lose.
Silva's rematch with Chael Sonnen will not take place at a stadium show in Brazil as rumored, due to concerns about Sonnen's safety.
UFC PPV buyrates will rebound from 2011, but won't be as good as they were in 2010.
Georges St-Pierre vs. Nick Diaz will do at least one million PPV buys.
A Brock Lesnar fight will account for the UFC's biggest buyrate of the year.
Anderson Silva, Frankie Edgar, and Dominick Cruz will lose their titles.
Frankie Edgar will drop down to featherweight and fight Jose Aldo for the featherweight title.
Including his upcoming fight with Brock Lesnar, Alistair Overeem will go 1-2 over the next year.
Only one title fight will be featured on FOX in 2012.
Vitor Belfort will get a title shot.
Wanderlei Silva will retire.
The UFC will re-sign Miguel Torres.
The UFC will sign Shinya Aoki.
Daniel Cormier will fight for the UFC heavyweight championship.
Dan Henderson will not fight for a UFC championship.
The flyweight title will be the only UFC title not to main event a PPV.
Anticipation will be high for a 2013 match-up between ‘Cyborg' Santos and Ronda Rousey.
UFC fighters will be brought over to Strikeforce to challenge Gilbert Melendez.
A Bellator reality show will debut on Spike TV.
Bellator ratings will see a slight increase.
Cole Konrad, Hector Lombard, and Ben Askren will remain Bellator champions.
Fedor Emelianenko will fight for the final time.
Anthony Pettis will land another "Showtime Kick".
Joseph Benavidez, Brian Bowles, Mark Hominick, Gray Maynard, Jake Shields, Yushin Okami, Lyoto Machida, and Shane Carwin will not lose.
New York will not sanction MMA.

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NEWS!

Strikeforce lives! After nearly a year of speculation, Strikeforce will continue to operate for at least a couple more years. The Zuffa brand reached a deal with Showtime to stay on the cable network. Under the new deal, Challengers events will be eliminated. Fights that would normally be featured on that show will now be prelims for the big Strikeforce events and air live on SHO Extreme. Preliminary fights for big Strikeforce events were mostly local fighters, so this is a welcomed change. Additionally, after the conclusion of the heavyweight tournament and one more fight after that, the heavyweight division will be eliminated. Many heavyweight fighters have already started making their way to the UFC. The second heavyweight fight will feature the tournament winner, probably against a UFC fighter. Surely that is something Showtime wanted in this deal to ensure good ratings. Other than that, it's essentially "business as usual," to steal a quote from UFC president Dana White. The women's divisions will be kept intact, lightweight champion Gilbert Melendez will remain in Strikeforce. New titles will be created in the light heavyweight and welterweight divisions as both of the former champions are now competing in the UFC. That's basically the gist of the deal.



Roy Nelson vs. Fabricio Werdum set for UFC 143. After more than a three year absence Fabricio Werdum will return to the UFC in February to fight "Big Country" Roy Nelson. Werdum was knocked out by then-unknown Junior dos Santos at UFC 90 in October of 2008 and subsequently released by the UFC despite being a strong title contender prior to the loss. He went to Strikeforce and found great success, including what will likely end up being the highlight of his career: ending Fedor Emelianenko's seven-year reign atop the heavyweight division with a triangle choke in 69 seconds.

Erik Koch out of UFC 143 bout against Dustin Poirier. Koch and Poirier, two young featherweight title contenders, were set to slug it out in February, but Koch has been forced out of the fight due to an undisclosed injury. The UFC has enough time to find a replacement fighter to take on Poirier, but it's unlikely he'll be the same caliber as Koch.

Travis Browne vs. Chad Griggs slated for UFC 145. Browne, 29, has yet to taste defeat in his career with a 12-0-1 MMA record. His highlight reel knockout of Stefan Struve gained him a lot of momentum, but he followed that up with a humdrum decision win over Rob Broughton that didn't make one believe he was ready for the next level of competition. Chad Griggs is a tough slugger that, after upsetting Bobby Lashley, scored two first round stoppages in Strikeforce. He's not a particularly big heavyweight, but he's an exciting fighter in a division that has seen some dull fights as of late.

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Fight for Japan. How are you! New Year! 2011
By the Numbers

4 - Number of years since Fedor Emelianenko, who headlines on Saturday against Satoshi Ishii, has fought in Japan on New Year's Eve. From 2003 to 2007, Fedor fought in Japan on New Year's Eve each year against a highly inconsistent caliber of opponents. In 2003 he fought pro wrestler Yuji Nagata on Antonio Inoki's New Year's show, dispatching him in 62 seconds. The next year he fought Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira for the third time, winning a decision. In 2005 he took on the infamous Zuluzinho, needing only 26 seconds to win. He then submitted Mark Hunt in 2006. Finally, in 2007 he submitted the giant Hong-Man Choi in the first round.

6 - Number of professional fights for 25-year-old Olympic gold medalist judoka Satoshi Ishii. In those six fights Ishii has not faced a top fighter. He faced a past-prime Hidehiko Yoshida in his debut bout, which turned out to be Yoshida's second-to-last fight. Ishii was defeated by decision. Next up was Tafa Misipati, who currently holds a pro record of 0-2. Then he fought Ikuhisa Minowa, a middleweight, in an open-weight bout. He then submitted pro wrestler and 4-11-1 MMA fighter Katsuyori Shibata. Last year on New Year's Eve he won a decision over K-1 legend Jerome Le Banner. In September he went to a draw with Paulo Filho, who has fallen quite far since his days as WEC middleweight champion.



9 - Number of UFC, Pride, WEC, Strikeforce, or Bellator veterans fighting on the show. They are Fedor, Shinya Aoki, Hayato Sakurai, Tatsuya Kawajiri, Ryo Chonan, Megumi Fujii, Antonio Banuelos, Hiroyuki Takaya, and Masakazu Imanari. Also featured on the card in pro wrestling matches are names like Kazushi Sakuraba, Josh Barnett, and Kazuyuki Fujita.

8 - Number of consecutive pro MMA bouts won by Shinya Aoki in Japan. Over that span, he has lost two times. The first in April of 2010 against Gilbert Melendez by decision, and the second in an exhibition mixed rules fight last year on New Year's Eve where he was knocked out by Yuichiro Nagashima in the second round. Aoki will defend his Dream lightweight title for the second time against former Sengoku champ Satoru Kitaoka on Saturday.

2 - Number of years since Hayato Sakurai has won a fight. In April of 2009 he knocked out Shinya Aoki in 27 seconds, but has since lost four consecutive fights – the longest win draught of his illustrious career. In those four fights he has been knocked out once, submitted twice, and lost a decision. Sakurai, 36, is truly one of the most overlooked great fighters of all-time. Around the turn of the millennium he was widely considered to be the best welterweight in the world until a young Anderson Silva pulled off a big upset and defeated him by decision. He later went on to have success in the lightweight division, defeating the aforementioned Aoki, Jens Pulver, and Joachim Hansen. Sakurai will look to get back in the win column against Ryo Chonan, famous for his flying scissor heel hook submission of Anderson Silva in 2004, on Saturday.

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That's it for this week. Thanks for reading; I hope you enjoyed it. You can join 118 others and follow me on Twitter if you please. Feel free to leave feedback in the comment box or at the e-mail address below.