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The 411 MMA Year-End Awards: Part Eight – The Best Fighter of 2016
Welcome back to the MMA Top 5, year-end awards edition! What we are going to is take a topic and all the writers here on 411 MMA will have the ability to give us their Top 5 on said topic, and the end, based on where all of these topics rank on people’s list, we will create an overall Top 5 list. It looks a little like this…
1st – 5
2nd – 4
3rd – 3
4th – 2
5th – 1
At the end we tally the scores and get our overall top 5! It’s highly non-official and final, like WAMMA. From best and worst fight to best fighter and KO of the year, the staff will come together to share out best. Thanks for joining us, and lets get down to work.
5. Conor McGregor
4. Michael Bisping
3. Cody Garbrandt
2. Amanda Nunes
1. Stipe Miocic – My feeling is that the fighter of the year is the person who had the best wins against the best competition. By those rules, in my mind the top two are clearly Stipe Miocic and Amanda Nunes, with Miocic getting a slight edge because he scored first round knockouts in all three of his bouts. First, he took out Andrei Arlovski, a top five contender at the beginning of the year. Then he went into Brazil and stopped Fabricio Werdum, one of the best heavyweights of all-time, in the first round. He capped it off in September in his hometown with a brutal knockout of Alistair Overeem. Sure, the mean age of those opponents was almost 37 and heavyweight isn’t the strongest division, but those are very good, convincing wins, and all against top fighters in the division.
5. Gegard Mousasi
4. Conor McGregor
3. Cody Garbrandt
2. Michael Bisping
1. Amanda Nunes – It’s now 2017 and Amanda Nunes is fresh off a year in which she demolished the competition at 135 pounds and is the undisputed champion. After topping Valentina Shevchenko, she choked out Miesha Tate in the main event of UFC 200 to win the bantamweight championship. She completed her year by thrashing Ronda Rousey in 48 seconds in her first title defense. Despite being a BJJ black belt, this year she showcased just how powerful her boxing is, proven by the bruised faces of Tate and Rousey after their losses. It’s the type of power that’s not typical in women’s MMA and gives you plenty of reason to believe she can hold onto the championship for a lengthy stretch of time.
5. Michael Bisping
4. Max Holloway
3. Amanda Nunes
2. Conor McGregor
1. Cody Garbrandt – It’s too bad this isn’t a top ten list. Many fighters deserve mentioning and it was a close race. Fighters like Stipe Miocic, Joanna Jedrzejczyk, Stephen Thompson, Donald Cerrone, and Gegard Mousasi had a stellar year. Ultimately, Cody Garbrandt gets the nod. Not one fighter started the year unranked and finished as the best in the division with a 4-0 record for the year. Not only did Garbrandt win a gold strap, he took it from one of the most dominate champions in MMA history to this point, Dominick Cruz. And he out worked the former champion, too. This was not a case of a one punch knockout out of nowhere or a razor close fight. Garbrandt convincingly beat Cruz. You can make the case that Conor McGregor belongs here, but he lost in March to Nate Diaz and slightly edged him in a rematch in August. Amanda went on a tear finished the Queen of Mixed Martial Arts potentially retiring the former holder of the throne. But, again, Garbrandt racked up three first round knockouts and a dominating performance over one of the best to ever step inside the octagon. Garbrandt’s year stands out a bit more than the rest of the pack for his ring performance.
5. Michael Bisping
4. Amanda Nunes
3. Stipe Miocic
2. Cody Garbrandt
1. Conor McGregor – Love him or hate him, Conor McGregor ruled MMA in 2016. He didn’t rattle off the most wins but he made the most money, made history by winning the lightweight title and was the name most talked about until Rousey’s latest loss. He was the sport’s biggest draw, hell on some level he was the sport.
5. Conor McGregor
4. Max Holloway
3. Stipe Miocic
2. Amanda Nunes
1. Cody Garbrandt – There are very cogent arguments for all of those five fighters, and at least two that didn’t make that list, but I’m going with the new bantamweight champion Cody Garbrandt. He went 4-0 on the year, three of those were first round finishes, and he took a great fight from Dominick Cruz to become the bantamweight champion. Between activity and level of accomplishment I have to go with Garbrandt here, the man had a tremendous year.
5. Michael Bisping
4. Max Holloway
3. Stipe Miocic
2. Conor McGregor
1. Cody Garbrandt – This was a tough call because there were so many impressive runs and performances throughout 2016. Heck, Michael Bisping, a perennial almost contender and gatekeeper of sorts for the UFC, actually became a UFC champion. Not only that, he defended his title, albeit in a controversial decision win over Dan Henderson. But my nod has to go to Cody Garbrandt. In 2016, he went 4-0. The first three wins were all first-round knockouts. At UFC 207, he fought Dominick Cruz for the title. I would say, Garbrandt was a sizable underdog, and really all fight week, I thought Cruz had a mental edge over Garbrandt. But during fight time, Garbrandt was more than able to handle Cruz’s unorthodox style and footwork, and in fact he made Cruz miss more than we’ve ever seen. Cruz has never lost a fight since 2007. Not only that, Cruz was undefeated as a bantamweight fighter and champion. Garbrandt goes 4-0 and caps off a banner year with a title win. Not only that, he has a ready-made first title defense ahead in TJ Dillashaw if all goes properly.
5. Gegard Mousasi
4. Conor McGregor
3. Cody Garbrandt
2. Michael Bisping
1. Amanda Nunes – It’s now 2017 and Amanda Nunes is fresh off a year in which she demolished the competition at 135 pounds and is the undisputed champion. After topping Valentina Shevchenko, she choked out Miesha Tate in the main event of UFC 200 to win the bantamweight championship. She completed her year by thrashing Ronda Rousey in 48 seconds in her first title defense. Despite being a BJJ black belt, this year she showcased just how powerful her boxing is, proven by the bruised faces of Tate and Rousey after their losses. It’s the type of power that’s not typical in women’s MMA and gives you plenty of reason to believe she can hold onto the championship for a lengthy stretch of time.
5. Michael Bisping – 13 points
4. Stipe Miocic – 14 points
3. Conor McGregor – 19 points
2. Amanda Nunes – 23 points
1. Cody Garbrandt – 27 points
THE 2016 411 MMA AWARDS:
* The Biggest Stories of 2016: Zuffa Sells UFC to WME-IMG for $4 BILLION – 29 points
* The Most Disappointing Fighters of 2016: Johny Hendricks – 28 points
* The Breakout Fighters of 2016: Cody Garbrandt – 25 points
* The Worst Fights of 2016: Kimbo Slice vs. Dada 5000 – Bellator 149 – 25 points
* The Best Submissions of 2016: Mackenzie Dern’s Imanari choke vs. Montana Stewart – LFC 61 – 20 points
* The Best Knockouts of 2016: Yair Rodriguez vs. Andre Fili – UFC 197 – 18 points
* The Best Fights of 2016: Doo Ho Choi vs. Cub Swanson – UFC 206 – 23 points
* Fighter of the Year: Cody Garbrandt- 27 points
On behalf of the 411 MMA staff, we thank you for following the awards columns, and hope that you continue to support the 411 MMA section.
