Frank Mir (2-0) (W vs. Minotauro Nogueira, Brock Lesnar) Miguel Torres (3-0) (W vs. Manny Tapia, Yoshiro Maeda, Chase Beebe) Rashad Evans (2-0) (W vs. Forrest Griffin, Chuck Liddell) Eddie Alvarez (4-1) (W vs. Tatsuya Kawajiri, Joachim Hansen, Andre Amade, Ross Ebanez; L vs. Shinya Aoki) Gegard Mousasi (6-0) (W vs. Ronaldo de Souza, Melvin Manhoef, Dong Sik Yoon, Denis Kang, Steve Mensing, Evangelista Santos) Brock Lesnar (2-1) (W vs. Randy Couture, Heath Herring; L vs. Frank Mir) Shinya Aoki (5-1-1) (W vs. Eddie Alvarez, Todd Moore, Caol Uno, Katsuhiko Nagata, Gesias Cavalcante; L vs. Joachim Hansen; NC vs. Gesias Cavalcante) Thiago Alves (3-0) (W vs. Josh Koscheck, Matt Hughes, Karo Parisyan) Kenny Florian (3-0) (W vs. Joe Stevenson, Roger Huerta, Joe Lauzon) Anderson Silva (3-0) (W vs. Patrick Cote, James Irvin, Dan Henderson)
I would go with Evans, but he only fought twice. That isn't cool. Silva. He dominated every single fight he had this year.
Aoki for me. Would have been Alvarez, but Aoki proved to be the better fighter. His loss to Hansen was due to his tough semi-final fight with Caol Uno and Hansen's easy reserve match. Silva beat dan henderson and two mediocre fighters. Aoki beat JZ, Alvarez and Caol Uno who are all very good LW fighters.
There are quite a few guys who can win this and be deserving. My vote goes to Frank Mir. You always hear veteran athletes say they they wish they had their young body and their old mind. We're seeing both in Frank Mir right now. His potential is through the roof. He got wins over both UFC Heavyweight Champions, both by stoppage. He is the first person to put Minotauro out and he is looking better than ever.
Don't know how you guys couldn't vote for Frank Mir!!! Seriously! Big wins over Minotauro Nogueira AND Brock Lesnar 2 UFC Heavyweight Champions in the same year! KO'ed the man who has never been KO'ed before and submitted the unbeated Brock Lesnar!!!!!!! FRANK MIR FIGHTER OF THE YEAR, EASILY!!!!
^ At least we agree. There is no consensus this year. Some noise for Rashad Evans, some for Thiago Silva, some for Aoki--nobody can agree. I guess that means there were a lot of great fighters this year.
The UFC HW's division is shallow to say the least. Beating Nog was a huge accomplishment, but the miles may be showing on Nog. He struggled with Heath Herring in his first UFC bout and got pounded on for 3 rounds before he slipped on a sub on Timmy Silva. Lesnar is still a mystery as to how good he really is. He beat Herring by controlling him for 3 round with his wrestling.. something Heath's always had problems with. He beat 45 year old Randy Couture who had not fought in well over a year and is.. well, 45 yrs old. Aoki fought and beat JZ calvacante who was considered one of the 5 best LW's in the world, beat Eddie Alvarez who moved up into the top 5 after his brilliant run in the Dream LW GP, beat a very solid fighter in Caol Uno and his only loss was to Joachim Hansen when he had to fight for the 2nd time that night at the Dream LW GP finals after a 15 min gruelling match with Uno and Hansen won his fight in a reserve match in realatively easy fashion. IMO Aoki has much better quality wins than Mir.
