The Best & Worst of MMA in 2017: Robert Whittaker, Tyron Woodley, Knockout of the Year, More

Hey there everyone and welcome to one writers Year End Awards column. For a variety of reasons the usual format for Year End Awards wasn’t able to come together this year. Instead you get to listen to me, Robert Winfree, ramble a bit about the awards and give you my list. Fair warning, there’s a few draws here on my personal card so please feel free to debate in the comments section, or just complain about the cop-out. I’m fine with either one.

I’d like to start out with a brand new award, that may or may not return in future years but I’d like to present the inaugural. . .

Ian McCall Worst Luck Award

This goes to Ian McCall, for continuing to have the worst luck in the sport. I have no idea which entity he offended but he did a darn thorough job of it. As this is the first presentation of this award rather than focus on just the previous year I’d like to take a look at why McCall gets one named after him.

Ian McCall’s career was derailed when Australian judges failed at elementary school level math. He was brought into the UFC as part of the four man tournament to crown the first UFC flyweight champion. He was matched with Demetrious Johnson in the first round and the two had a solid fight, with the announced decision going to Johnson but the actual decision being a draw. In the format they fought under they should have gone to a fourth sudden death round, and McCall had earned a 10-8 in the third to force the draw and was looking good. Had they come out for a fourth round he likely would have won and gone on to fight for the title. Instead they re-matched a few months later and Johnson won a clear cut decision then went onto the most successful (numerically speaking) title reign in UFC history.

Since that loss in 2012 McCall has gone 2-3 with a whopping 10 fights called off due to injury, illness, weight related issues, and just general mayhem. In 2017 he had two bouts canceled then requested his release from the UFC, which he was granted, hoping a change of scenery would end the curse. In his lone fight in 2017, and after nearly two years out of action, he took on Manel Kape in Rizin’s Grand Prix and promptly had his forehead sliced open by the ring ropes badly enough to force the doctors to stop the fight. That Grand Prix eventually went to another former UFC fighter, Kyoji Horiguchi who will be appearing later in the awards, but McCall’s continued spate of horrible luck bears memorializing in some form or another.

Worst Fight of 2017

Boy were there some bad fights last year. I don’t watch enough MMA to give a truly comprehensive list but here’s my take on the worst fights from the year.

5: Tyron Woodley vs. Stephen Thompson from UFC 209: This wasn’t all that good. When Woodley and Thompson met the first time it ended in a draw and was somewhat fondly remembered due to some late dramatics in the fourth and fifth rounds. If you take off the rose colored glasses there was a lot of stalling, a lot of feinting into nothing, and a lot of boredom punctuated with the last two frames. The rematch didn’t have the dramatics and was pretty darn boring. Woodley did a lot of backing up and circling, Thompson did a lot of sniping without committing, and the crowd booed basically every minute of it. This isn’t the only time you’ll see Tyron Woodley on this list.

4: Nate Marquardt vs. Vitor Belfort from UFC 212: This fight defied all conventional logic. Belfort fought risk averse and very low output, Marquardt didn’t pressure a guy with a shot chin and dubious cardio, the scoring was a little bit skewed in favor of the home town guy, and it just drug down the entire event.

3: Anderson Silva vs. Derek Brunson from UFC 208: For a guy who’s regarded as one of the best ever and who has produced so many memorable finishes and performances, Anderson Silva fell off of the shelf incredibly quickly. This was supposed to favor Silva as Brunson can’t keep from leading with his chin and Silva is a gifted counter striker. What we got was a prolonged series of circling exchanges, a few punches mostly missing as Brunson refused to commit and Silva was wary of Brunson’s power. There was some clinching, a few low kicks, but a lot of nothing really happened and to top it all off the decision for Silva was incredibly Clucky influenced.

2: Hisaki Kato vs. Ralek Gracie from Bellator 170:

When was the last time a fight involving a Gracie was any good? I feel like it’s been at least 8 or 9 years. Hisaki Kato has some decent striking and good power, Gracie has the chin of a Gracie (not very good) but solid jiu-jitsu. One would hope for at least a quick finish if either man could keep the fight in his area of expertise. Yeah, that didn’t happen. Kato spent the first two rounds tattooing Gracie with leg kicks but not much else, then Gracie got a takedown in the third, got to mount, and proceeded to do nothing then wonder why he lost on points. This was bad, and if this list were based purely on action it might take the top spot but I have another criteria to consider and I’ll get into it when talking about. . .

1: Tyron Woodley vs. Demian Maia from UFC 214:

So this fight. This was the worst UFC title fight, yes including Arlovski vs. Sylvia 3 and including the utterly forgettable Montano vs. Modafferi affair. This might be the worst title fight in any major MMA promotion, though Manhoef vs. Carvalho is shockingly bad and has a slight edge if you count the decision being flat out wrong. The reason this takes the cake for me has to do with expectation and ability, Kato vs. Gracie sucked out loud but was also between two slightly gimmicky fighters with nothing on the line. This was two of the premier welterweights in the world fighting for the biggest title, and they turned in an all time awful result. Woodley spent entire rounds putting his back on the fence, looking to counter with power punches and rapidly disengaging from any takedown attempts from Maia. Maia never adapted from his single leg takedown, even once it was obvious Woodley was more than prepared for it, and gassed into the fourth round. Woodley still didn’t really come forward, content to try the old Dagestani two step for his punches, and grip break any time Maia got close. It’s worth noting that Woodley’s hand fighting was awesome in this fight, but nothing else was.

Breakout Fighter of the Year

Breakout or breakthrough categories are tricky because there’s a variety of criteria to be weighted. For me the big one is distance covered, who went the farthest over the time frame, with level attained being essentially a tie breaker. With that in mind, here’s the fighters I felt made the most headway.

5: Cythia Calvillo

I initially had Calvillo higher on this list, and had she won her fight with Carla Esparza she would have been a shoe-in for the top spot. Then she lost a striking battle with Carla Esparza, I genuinely didn’t think it was possible for that to happen, and was flagged for marijuana pertaining to that fight. Despite that Calvillo went 4-1 in 2017 with four fights in the UFC, she finished two of her three UFC wins and despite the set back she’s emerged as the most notable prospect at strawweight.

4: Colby Covington

Covington only fought twice in 2017 and has been with the UFC since 2014, but breakout has a lot of connotations to it and Covington blew up this year. It was for being a horrible person, having bad promos that insult entire cultures, and getting hit in the face with a boomerang thrown by Fabricio Werdum. Despite that, he won both of his fights and has positioned himself as a title contender. Not bad for a guy who started the year a total afterthought.

3: Zabit Magomedsharipov

Man was I excited when this guy debuted in the UFC. Magomedsharipov wasn’t known outside of the hardcore community, and major props to Grabaka Hitman on twitter for giving context to all of these debuting guys, but after seeing his highlight reel and then his really great debut I was sold. He followed that up with another dominant win, this time showing a different skill set and displaying a depth of positional understanding. This guy has gone from just another talented Russian fighter fighting on cards basically seen by the insomniac hardcore fans to a blue chip prospect that a lot of people, myself included, think will contend for the title in the next couple of years.

2: Darren Till

I had pegged Till as the winner of this award before double checking the guy who wound up taking it, because of how my criteria works. Despite that, Till had a great year. He only fought twice but he won both of them and it’s the second fight that caused him to really stand out in the minds of fans. In October Till basically ran over Donald Cerrone in a fashion not seen since Cerrone’s second fight with Rafael dos Anjos. Till is a massive welterweight, hits hard and has found a really interesting striking style that can be summed up as Muy Thai from a karate stance. He blew through the toughest match of his career and took out a fighter that pretty much everyone respects. Till isn’t in the title picture right now but one more win and he could easily get there. Again, I thought he was going to take this one before double checking the resume of. . .

1: Volkan Oezdemir

Who went the farthest the fastest this year? Volkan Oezdemir. Oezdemir debuted in the UFC on short notice and against Ovince Saint Preux, he won a split decision in a largely uneventful half slug fest, but he won and was in the UFC and didn’t look back. He followed that up by finishing two rising contenders, Misha Cirkunov and Jimi Manuwa in a combined 1:10 of fight time and he’s now scheduled to fight for the title on Saturday. This guy went from unknown to clear title contender in the space of 12 months. The fact that light heavyweight as a division is basically a dumpster fire helped, but he still did it and did it quickly.

Submission of the Year

5: Aleksei Oleinik’s Ezekiel choke of Viktor Pesta from Fight Night 103

The reality is this shouldn’t happen. Ezekiel chokes are a rarity in MMA to begin with, they’re very difficult to pull off without a gi and almost always require full mount or at a minimum some heavy pressure from top position to add weight to the choke. Here Oleinik grabbed the basics of the choke as Pesta took him down, Pesta got to full mount but never addressed the choking arms and tapped not long after. Again, this shouldn’t happen at the UFC level, but it did. Oleinik gets the first Ezekiel choke in UFC history and becomes the first guy to win a fight while being mounted. Gimmicky nature of this aside, that deserves mention here.

4: Georges St-Pierre’s rear naked choke of Michael Bisping from UFC 217

If I weighted achievement based on the outcome of the submission this would have rated two places higher as GSP became the fourth guy to win titles in two different weight classes in the UFC. As it stands this was still impressive. GSP floored Bisping with a left hook and started elbowing him from guard, diving into guard rather than passing a dazed opponent has been a tactical issue with GSP for years, but Bisping was recovering if still wobbled. What followed highlighted St-Pierre’s work with John Danaher, he backed off enough to let his dazed opponent sit up trying to regain his feet, slid around to the back and immediately locked in a choke that eventually caused Bisping to lose consciousness. It was also GSP’s first finish since 2009.

3: Brian Ortega’s guillotine choke of Cub Swanson from Fight Night 123

I was really impressed with this finish. If you want a more comprehensive breakdown of what led to this than I can give please check out Luke Thomas’ Monday Morning Analyst on the finish, he goes into great detail about specifics and set ups and it’s definitely worth your time. The long and short of it is Ortega forced a clinch position, baited Swanson into ducking torso just a little bit and then got an arm around the back of his neck. It was quick, and once that arm was in place he jumped guard and went to lock up the choke. Swanson tried to fight and Ortega actually hit a really nice mid air adjustment to solidify the choke and end Swanson’s title aspirations.

2: Brett Johns’ calf slicer against Joe Soto at the TUF 26 Finale

I’m a sucker for a calf slicer, and this one was a thing of beauty. Joe Soto has a great leg lock game of his own and is a former finalist at one of the earlier Eddie Bravo Invitational events. Soto tried a single leg, Johns reached into a high crotch position to help negate that and off set his balance, they fell towards a leg entanglement and Johns quickly triangled one of Soto’s legs, grabbed the foot and cranked back to force the tap. It was just the second calf slicer finish in UFC history, Charles Oliveira has the first, and in pretty much any other year this would have taken the top spot. But this year, we had. . .

1: Demetrious Johnsons’ suplex to armbar against Ray Borg from UFC 216

It takes a fair amount to provoke a physical reaction from me when it comes to what happens in an MMA fight. I react of course, but I don’t really flail my arms about, or jump up and down, or give a big verbal exclamation. I’m just familiar with a lot of what happens and, quite frankly, I’m a bit of a snob when it comes to fighting so I don’t get terribly excited about a lot. All that is to say that when this happened, my eyes bugged out, my jaw dropped, and I typed up the last bit of my coverage for that event in a haze of stunned admiration. In the fifth round of an action packed and high paced fight, fighting a scrambler and grappler, Demetrious Johnson hit a suplex (or suck back if you want to get really technical differentiating similar techniques), dropped his opponent at the apex of the arc, and grabbed an armbar as they fell to the mat. It looked like a professional wrestling move, and Johnson pulled it off against someone actively resisting and after over twenty minutes of fighting. This wasn’t just the best submission of 2017, it’s one of the best in UFC history and a clip of it was the top viewed post on Reddit that evening.

Knockout of the Year

There were some awesome knockouts this year, and a shockingly high percentage of them came from knee strikes. I’ll put a full highlight of knee related finishes from around the MMA world after the list, and while a few of the finishes on my list were from other strikes it’s still a great highlight. This will probably somewhat contested, again feel free to leave your thoughts below, and my top three have changed several times but I feel these are the best finishes of the year.

HM: Ricardo Ramos’ spinning back elbow vs. Aiemann Zahabi at UFC 217

5: Damir Hadzovic’s knee vs. Marcin Held at Fight Night 109

Our first knee strike of the list, but hardly the last. Marcin Held was up two rounds going into the third and had shown himself the better grappler. In the opening seconds of the third round he decided to get the fight to the ground again, but not with a blast double, or a single leg into a high crotch, or anything remotely conventional. No, Held tried an Imanari roll, and as he tried that technique he left his head exposed and rolled directly into a vicious knee strike from Hadzovic that knocked him out cold. It was beautifully timed by Hadzovic and wonderfully violent to boot.

4: Matt Brown’s ELBOW vs. Diego Sanchez at Fight Night 120

Man this was lovely, for those of us who enjoy violence. Matt Brown has consistently had good fights and impressive finishes, he loves his elbow strikes in particular and uses them very well. Here Brown caught a kick, held the ankle and pushed Sanchez into the fence, clinched just long enough to push free and measure him with his left hand then unload an elbow that seemed to start clear up in the nose bleed section of the arena before crashing into Sanchez’s head and removing his ability to differentiate circles from squares.

3: Marlon Moraes’ knee vs. Aljamain Sterling at Fight Night 123

This one shocked me. I expected Moraes to win this fight, I didn’t expect him to brutally knee Sterling so hard that the latter had to be carted out of the cage on a backboard. Moraes went to throw a switch kick as Sterling reached for a takedown, or faked a takedown who knows, and Sterling drove past the shin so the knee landed right to his head. Sterling fell like a chopped down tree and went stiff, this was one of the scariest KO’s of the year and in that respect comes in second only to our next entry.

2: Francis Ngannou’s shovel punch vs. Alistair Overeem at UFC 218

I can hear a bunch of you already disagreeing with this not being at the top. Ask me tomorrow and it might switch places with the top spot, but for now hear me out. This was a wicked punch from Ngannou, Overeem decided to engage in some loopy punching exchanges with a vicious power puncher, left himself open with poor arm position, and Ngannou hit him so hard he actually left his feet for a second. I hate that the UFC has resorted to pseudoscience to try and hype Ngannou’s power because I believe he’s the hardest puncher in UFC history, but saying that almost lends their asinine “units” some degree of validation. This was a brutal finish, but it falls short of the top spot as I write this because I’ve got a love of technique more than power and our top knockout has more of that.

1: Edson Barboza’s flying knee vs. Beneil Dariush at Fight Night 106

Ngannou’s shovel punch/uppercut from the depths of hell was scary, but this one was more impressive to me. Barboza didn’t just land a big shot, he ate a jab and timed a flying knee on the follow up takedown attempt from Dariush. It was a quick reaction, it exploited the tiniest of openings on a really good fighter, and it was utterly spectacular.

Fighter of the Year

Fair warning guys, there’s a three way tie for first place. Differentiating between the top three guys here is essentially down to your personal preferences and I went back and forth too much to feel comfortable giving just one of them the top spot. I’m very curious as to how you all rate this category, there really wasn’t a clear cut front runner.

5: Rose Namajunas

Rose fought twice in 2017, and if I had a upset category she’d take that one hands down, but there are better cases for those ahead of her in the overall category. Rose scored a massive upset when she knocked out Joanna Jedrzejczyk in the first round to become the new strawweight champion this year. It was shocking, and deserving of a ton of praise, but given that her other win is over someone who really should be a weight class lower and the division as a whole is still developing, she winds up only in this spot for me.

4: Kyoji Horiguchi

This one likely surprises a few of you, and it wasn’t until Rizin’s New Years card that I realized what a great year Horiguchi had. I don’t watch enough MMA to really feel great about lists like this, and Horiguchi nearly being left off of this list should be evidence to that. Horiguchi might be somewhat known to a few of you as one of Demetrious Johnsons’ victims, but he’s an excellent fighter. Horiguchi went 7-1 in the UFC before deciding not to renew his contract and being unhappy with how the UFC treated him. To be fair he has a point about that, he only fought on two PPV main cards and his last two fights were buried on Fight Pass despite his stellar overall record and being a clear fighter to build the flyweight division around going forward. For 2017 Horiguchi went 5-0, finished four of those, and finish his last three fights in the space of two days while winning the Rizin grand prix at bantamweight. This guy had a great year, just one that I feel most fans weren’t aware of.

T-1: Demetrious Johnson

This is probably the fighter with the weakest case for being Fighter of the Year, which pains me as he made history and did so in spectacular fashion, but strength of schedule does matter. Personally the strongest argument in his favor is consistency, Johnson entered 2017 one step away from matching Anderson Silva’s record for consecutive title defenses and after he did that one step away from unmatched history. And as Indiana Jones noted, that’s usually when the ground falls out from under your feet. Johnson avoided that particular pitfall, beat two talented fighters to do it, and won both of his fights by the widest margin of the top three.

T-1: Max Holloway

Max Holloway. The only guy I’ve gone on record saying I thought would be a future champion who actually did it. Holloway fought just twice in 2017, and against the same guy, but said guy is an all time great and the greatest featherweight to this point in history, Jose Aldo. Holloway beat him, and finished him, twice in a short span of time. The biggest knock on Holloway’s argument for being the top guy is that he beat someone he’d already beaten and the timing of that rematch left little doubt that he’d get the same result. He did something incredibly different in the rematch, but it was technical details most of us overlooked upon first viewing. Holloway is the best featherweight in the world and I wouldn’t be shocked if he surpasses Aldo in the all time rankings, in fact had he fought and beat Frankie Edgar instead of Aldo for his second fight there’s a much stronger case for him as the top guy, but such is life. Fortunately that fight is scheduled for an upcoming event and I can’t wait.

T-1: Robert Whittaker

If strength of schedule were the deciding factor in this category, Whittaker takes it hands down as beating Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza and Yoel Romero back to back is more impressive than Johnson or Holloway in terms of schedule. Whittaker also had one of the most fascinating adjustments when he beat Romero, he’s a jab heavy fighter and after Romero injured the lead leg of Whittaker he had to completely shift from jabbing to a rear leg front kick, shift his entire game around that adjustment, and still beat one of the best middleweights in the world. I hope he recovers quickly from his injuries, because Whittaker is one of the best guys going and he had a wonderful 2017 that ended with him getting the full middleweight title when GSP vacated the title due to health concerns.

Here’s a few highlights from Whittaker as I feel you’re all more familiar with Holloway and Johnson from the year.

Fight of the Year

This is another tough one guys. There were some action filled fights, but personally I prefer fights that also showcase technique, decision making, basically more than just a brawl and we had a lot of brawls this year. If the primary consideration is just action, the act of strikes being thrown, feel free to check out your local karate studio and watch the kids class sparring because I guarantee you’ll see stuff being thrown. I look for more in MMA, and my selection in this category tends to reflect that. I mean, I didn’t give Robbie Lawler vs. Carlos Condit the top spot last year instead slightly favoring Cruz vs. Garbrandt if that gives you an indication of my personal taste. Regardless, here’s what I think are the best fights from 2017 and you’re all free to disagree and tell me how wrong I am.

5: Dustin Poirier vs. Eddie Alvarez from UFC 211

I loved this fight. There was blood, there was heart, there was smart fighting from Poirier to batter Alvarez before he got sloppy and went head hunting, Alvarez turned things around and we were all having a good time. Then that knee. That illegal knee, and the resulting No Contest. Honestly it should have been a disqualification, and had we received a clear winner this would probably be a few spots higher, but we were deprived of that. The action was still great and it’s a shame we’re unlikely to get a rematch between these two as Alvarez doesn’t seem to want it.

4: Justin Gaethje vs. Eddie Alvarez from UFC 218

This fight wasn’t what I expected it to be, in this case that’s kind of a good thing. Eddie Alvarez showed incredible composure and ability to stick to a game plan in this fight, he went to the body frequently and refused to engage in an out and out brawl with one of the most technical brawlers in the sport. Gaethje doggedly kept coming forward, chopping with low kicks and uppercuts, he wobbled Alvarez a few times but never really found the perfect timing on his offense and Alvarez patiently worked the body with hard punches, then hit a lovely knee as Gaethje got too trigger happy looking for a finish after wobbling him to end it. This wasn’t as wild as I think we all expected, but it was a brutal and methodical fight.

3: Lando Vannata vs. Bobby Green from UFC 216

Yeah, a lot of brawls this year. This one was fun and had a really interesting clash of styles, both Green and Vannata were doing a lot of defensive things that would have worked wonders against pretty much anyone else, but against each other they wound up taking a ton of blows to the head. This is the second fight on this list marred by an illegal knee, but the resulting draw was probably the most correct outcome.

2: Yancy Medeiros vs. Alex Oliveira from UFC 218

This one was a lot of fun, a lot of brawling but with a few technical moments. Both guys got dropped multiple times, there were insane momentum shifts and a ton of heart from each guy before Oliveira’s body just kind of gave up on him in the third as Medeiros poured on the offense. This was a great brawl, but if we’re just going with brawls on this list (and it seems that I am). . .

1: Justin Gaethje vs. Michael Johnson from the TUF 25 Finale

Might as well go with the wildest one. Gaethje and Johnson went at it for as long as they could, Johnson was getting worked over with leg kicks and counter punches in the first but landed a hard punch that wobbled Gaethje to turn the tide before the round ended. Into the second round Johnson started fading, as he tends to do, and Gaethje poured on kicks, knees, punches, elbows, basically everything but the kitchen sink, until Johnson just crumpled against the fence under the unrelenting barrage. This was a great introduction to Gaethje for the UFC audience, a crazy back and forth fight, and featured an intimate and raucous crowd to add to the atmosphere of insanity.

And that’s my look back at 2017, thanks for reading and stay safe out there.

Robert Winfree is a libra, longtime host of the 411 Ground and Pound Radio Show Sunday’s at 8pm est, and current live coverage guru for the MMA zone of 411mania