If your capacity for following mixed martial arts begins and ends with the UFC calendar, then you have reached the end of the year.
But even if you’re itching for that New Year’s Eve combat sports extravaganza from Japan-based Rizin, it’s at this point that we can pretty comfortably look back on 2023 in MMA and assess the year that was. Read on for The Post’s award winners in this wacky, clown show of a sport — and I say that (mostly) with love.
Fighters of the Year: Alex Pereira (male), Alexa Grasso (female)
Is it blasphemy to hand this honor to Pereira, who started his year of competition by losing his middleweight title without a successful defense?
Maybe, but deal with it.
The Brazilian recovered up 20 pounds at light heavyweight, topping ex-champs Jan Blachowicz and then Jiri Prochazka, the latter for a third consecutive year winning at Madison Square Garden that made him the fastest man to become a two-division UFC champion.
Five men went unbeaten over multiple fights and ended the year with UFC titles — middleweight champ Sean Strickland led at 3-0, with two non-title wins against middling competition — but none made history to the degree of the former kickboxing champion.
Outside the UFC, no fighter had a bigger year than Patchy Mix, who won Bellator’s $1 million bantamweight grand prix then unified the 135-pound title against champion Sergio Pettis just before the promotion-as-we-know-it ceased to exist.
As for Grasso, you can grouse all you want about the way her rematch with Valentina Shevchenko was actually scored. But ask yourself this: 12 months ago, could you have conceived of Mexico’s first woman to claim UFC gold still carrying the belt by now after two matchups with the mighty Shevchenko?
I didn’t think so.
Honorable mention to Amanda Nunes, who called it a career having found no more worlds to conquer after cruising past Irene Aldana in June and whose retirement reverberated through the collective of relief from 135-pound women across the sport.
Event of the Year: UFC 295
Even without Jon Jones vs. Stipe Miocic, the UFC delivered in November at the Garden again with Pereira’s second coronation and Tom Aspinall becoming Britain’s first (interim) heavyweight champion.
Those alone wouldn’t be enough, but factor in they were part of a five-fight pay-per-view card that strung together all (T)KOs and plenty of highlight-reel action throughout the prelims and we’ve got one heck of a memorable night in New York.
Props to Noche UFC and UFC 285 as well, and Poland-based KSW’s Colosseum 2 event was peak MMA spectacle.
Fight of the Year: Alexandre Pantoja vs. Brandon Moreno II
The UFC 290 co-main event positively sizzled, reminding that Brandon Moreno didn’t need to just keep fighting Deiveson Figueiredo time after time to have a brilliant flyweight title fight.
But it was Pantoja who once again had Moreno’s number in their rematch, claiming the belt for himself in a back-and-forth thriller that could have gone either way.
There’s never a shortage of incredible UFC clashes, but the PFL semifinal showdown from The Theater at MSG in August between Clay Collard and Bronx-born Shane Burgos was the organization’s finest fight since its 2018 rebirth.
Knockout of the Year: Israel Adesanya
You knock out the Fighter of the Year, you automatically win this award.
OK, not really.
It’s more about everything that led up to Adesanya crumpling the stone-handed bane of his combat sports career, with Pereira besting him twice in their kickboxing days and snatching the UFC middleweight title away in their first MMA meeting last November.
April was always going to be the last chance Adesanya would get to prove he actually could beat Pereira when it counted, and his fast hands announced as much to the world.
The emotional, grave-stomping pantomime archery mocking his career rival was the cherry on top.
So many brilliant, violent ends won’t get their deserved shine here, but might as well highlight the frightening one-punch KO Josh Emmett planted on Bryce Mitchell on Saturday that left the latter scarily spasming unconscious on the canvas.
As they say: You don’t play MMA.
Submission of the Year: Louis Glismann
Who?
If you spend your entire weekend watching multiple combat sports events at once, you might have missed a gem from Glismann against Melvin van Suijdam for Czechia-based Oktagon.
The Dane pulled off an extraordinarily rare inverted omoplata with just three seconds left in the first round, a lightning-fast strike of a sub that forced a fast tapout for the spectacular finish.
If you’d like something you’re a bit more likely to have seen live, take your pick of Diego Lopes’ triangle armbar of Gavin Tucker and Da’Mon Blackshear’s twister on Jose Johnson, each happening in consecutive weeks during Fight Night cards in August.
Rally of the Year: Edson Barboza
Barboza was done. Everyone could see Sodiq Yusuff was going to make their main event a quick one with a first-round battering most guys — Barboza included — hadn’t proved capable of withstanding.
The nature of this category should broadly tell you what came next.
Barboza survived, Yusuff quickly faded, and the Brazilian stormed back for a clear decision victory to add yet another memorable fight to his résumé that, while lacking a championship challenge, oozes entertainment.
Upset of the Year: Sean Strickland and Alexa Grasso (tie)
Strickland looked every bit the part of a generic middleweight title challenger who Adesanya would dispatch as he had just about all the others (save for the Pereira saga). If he was to knock off the champ, conventional wisdom went, it would be some sort of Hail Mary submission or “lucky” punch.
Yeah, not so much.
For five rounds, Strickland was clearly and distinctly the better man that night in September, improbably reaching the top of the middleweight mountain against one of the division’s most successful champions ever.
And Grasso? Well, she was fighting the only female flyweight champion of real note in UFC history in Shevchenko, who it must be noted was not rolling over competition at 125 pounds with the frequency she once did.
A fight that was more competitive than expected was still going the defending champion’s way, until Grasso made her pay for a massive tactical error with a quick back take and crunching face crank to secure the tapout and a historic championship victory.
Comeback Fighter of the Year: Jon Jones
The most talented — and often the most frustrating — mixed martial artist of all time took 37 months away from competition to bulk up for a long-gestating move from 205 pounds to heavyweight, and he ensured his return was every bit as quick as his hiatus was long.
Vying for the vacant title opened up by lineal champion Francis Ngannou’s free-agent departure, Jones needed just 2:04 to put away ex-interim champ Ciryl Gane with a guillotine choke and become the two-weight champion so many — this columnist included — suspected was an eventuality as long as a dozen years ago.
Coach/Trainer of the Year: Eric Nicksick
There’s a bit of a cheat here because part of the reason Nicksick is most deserving is for his contributions in boxing, in which he helped Ngannou improbably, nearly upset champion Tyson Fury in his pugilistic debut. But, hey, Ngannou is best known for being the best heavyweight MMA fighter in the world the last time he competed in that sport, so it counts.
Know what else counts? Nicksick getting Strickland ready to have the fight of his life in a championship challenge just about nobody more than one degree removed from the challenger thought he’d win.
The man leading Xtreme Couture these days deserves praise for getting the most out of these two world-class fighters across two sports with odds clearly stacked against them.
Runner-up goes to Francisco Grasso, whose Lobo Gym has grown in profile thanks to the massive success of niece Alexa Grasso and the standout 2023 performances from Lopes, Loopy Godinez and Aldana (despite the unsuccessful title challenge).
Story of the Year: The rise of PFL
Because the UFC’s damage-control tactics to get ahead of the disturbing video of Dana White slapping his wife at a New Year’s celebration was so successful, by the end of the year the UFC president could talk unironically about his slap-fighting organization ad nauseam at UFC pressers and on official promotional channels. That, in and of itself, is quite a story.
A more consistent top story revolved around PFL — which realistically was still the No. 3 MMA organization in North America 12 months ago — grabbing more headlines than any UFC rival has since, perhaps, the days of Pride FC.
From adding Ngannou to their roster to the signing of attention-grabbing, influencer-turned-boxer Jake Paul, the organization landed some of the more noteworthy individuals in combat sports.
But nothing beat the long-rumored move to purchase Bellator MMA, including its impressive roster of fighters, in terms of big moves. Combining the rosters of the two once-rival organizations gives them a collection of talent which, while not yet particularly close to rivaling that of the UFC, still stands as the deepest non-UFC roster since, well, Pride.
There’s still a great deal of wondering what the deal is with the corporatized rebrand of Bellator International Champions Series and the sheer number of “franchises” PFL plans to separately support, but it’s clear than the moves the organization made have reshaped the worldwide MMA landscape.
Now, if only they’d let everyone use their elbows to fight…
Credit: Source link
