The nominees are, in random order... Anderson "The Spider" Silva (2-0) Silva managed his fifth straight title defense in April against top contender Thales Leites, who he thoroughly albeit cautiously dominated. Later he jumped up in weight to fight the heaviest light heavyweight in the UFC, Forrest Griffin, who he humiliated with spectacular boxing within the first frame. His 10-win streak in the UFC is now the longest ever with no signs of stopping. Silva has established himself as arguably the best fighter in UFC history. B.J. "The Prodigy" Penn (2-1) Penn ambitiously jumped weight to rematch reigning welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre in January. Though he lost the fight Penn has been on a tear since mauling top lightweight contenders Kenny Florian and Diego Sanchez and reaffirming the belief that he is the best lightweight the sport has ever seen. Fedor "The Last Emperor" Emelianenko (2-0) The MMA community talked itself into believing that former UFC champion Andre Arlovski was a legitimate threat to Emelianenko's invincibility, a belief that Emelianenko quickly dispelled with a thunderous right hand in the first round of their WAMMA title fight. Emelianenko went on to do the same to undefeated brawler Brett Rogers, though some argue that Rogers had been forced into the cage with Emelianenko too soon. Jose Aldo Jr. (4-0) Few fans knew of the scarred Rio native in 2008 when he arrived in the WEC. Now with six straight knockout victories, the Anderson Silva of the featherweight division is the WEC champion and the most exciting fighter in all of MMA. Aldo worked his way up the WEC featherweight ladder with knockouts against Rolando Perez and Chris Mickle. He then put out Cub Swanson with a knockout of the year candidate flying double knee in eight seconds to earn himself a title shot. From there he surprised the MMA world by easily handling incumbent champion Mike Brown and taking his title in just over six minutes--the first time Aldo had been out of the first round since 2008. With an Aldo/Urijah Faber superfight on the horizon, Aldo's career will continue to gain momentum. Lyoto "The Dragon" Machida (3-0) Before his fight with Tito Ortiz, Machida was considered an intriguing but overly safe fighter. He posed a lot of problems for his opponents because of an elusive, defensive style and an unconventional points karate attacking methodology. When he nearly finished Ortiz with a knee to the liver in 2008 the MMA world started to recognize his ability. In January, Machida orchestrated a complete destruction of Thiago Silva, earning himself a title shot in the process, then wrecked champion Rashad Evans to take his place at the top of the most talent-rich weight class in MMA. However, a controversial decision victory over Mauricio Rua shattered the illusion that Machida was untouchable--and a rematch in May could be the end of his short title reign. Georges "Rush" St. Pierre (2-0) The most anticipated rematch in MMA history was between St. Pierre and B.J. Penn, who had fought to a split decision in 2006 at UFC 58. When the rematch went down in January the crowd and much of the MMA world was stunned to see St. Pierre crush the life out of Penn and force his corner to stop the fight between the fourth and fifth rounds. Afterward many critics said Penn was too small to fight St. Pierre. In contrast, St. Pierre's next opponent, Thiago Alves, was said to be too big for the lanky French Canadian. St. Pierre suffered a groin injury in the fight with Alves but managed to defeat him on all score cards, winning every round and further cementing his status as the top fighter at 170-lbs.. Jake Shields (2-0) With EliteXC dead and Strikeforce's welterweight division lacking in competition for him, Jake Shields made the move up to middleweight and immediately challenged one of Strikeforce's best in Robbie Lawler. It only took the Caesar Gracie-trained grappling specialist two minutes to submit Lawler and make his mark on the division. Later on in the year Strikeforce brought in Jason Miller to challenge Shields, reckoning that Miller's grappling experience could negate Shield's smothering style. Instead a five round mat battle ensued with Shields controlling and bruising Mayhem en route to a unanimous decision victory. Gegard Mousasi (3-0) The most coveted free agent in MMA outside of Fedor Emelianenko, the Armenian-born Iranian Mousasi had his coming out party this year. After winning the Dream middleweight grand prix in 2008, Mousasi decided to take a step up in weight and move to the light heavyweight division. Along the way he dispatched PRIDE veteran Mark Hunt, former UFC top contender Renato Sobral, and more recently UFC castoff Sokoudjou to retain Strikeforce's light heavyweight strap. Generally considered a top-5 light heavyweight and middleweight, MMA fans eagerly await Mousasi's departure from Strikeforce so that he can challenge the best the UFC has to offer--that is, unless Mousasi's contract with M-1 Global is the kind that will never let him leave. Cain Velasquez (3-0) In a sport where you can rarely pick your opponents fighters nonetheless get criticized for not fighting the best all the time. Young heavyweight Cain Velasquez came into the UFC with just a 2-0 record and fought three unranked heavyweights before getting a shot at a legitimate opponent--Cheick Kongo. Once he did, however, the AKA product demonstrated that he is a title contender. Velasquez took everything Kongo had to offer during the fifteen-minute fight and kept moving forward, dominating Kongo from top position and pummeling the Frenchman with take-downs and ground-and-pound. From there Velasquez went on to stop veteran heavyweight Ben Rothwell after a series of unanswered punches against the cage, earning himself a chance to fight former PRIDE and UFC heavyweight champ Minotauro Nogueira next year.
Hey c'mon, only Frank Mir and Miguel's family like him more than I do, but the guy was 1-1 this year.
Word. To me it comes down to Aldo, Lyoto, Velasquez, or Moussasi. Velasquez is the odd man out when it comes to having a belt. And Moussassi and Velazquez haven't faced much top competition this year. Aldo and Lyoto both made a surge and won a belt in their respective divisions. Both faced top level competition in their divisions and beat the champs. I'll give Aldo the edge because his ascent seems a little more dominant and Lyoto looked beatable (I still think he lost) against Shogun. Aldo gets bonus points for having fought four fights, more than anyone else on the list, for the year and for being so exciting to watch. I think I'm overlooking GSP though. He won convincingly against Penn and Alves which is very impressive. Silva dominated in two fights as well but Leites and Forrest aren't top shelf competition IMO. Penn beat the hell out of two great lightweights but did lose badly to GSP. Fedor had a really good year with wins over Arlovski and Rogers but its hard to get over the fact that he COULD have fought Barnett and some really good UFC heavyweights too. I just flat out don't think Jake Sheilds is that good lol. Torres shouldn't be on here since he fought twice and went 1-1. Can't really think of anyone else to put on the list other than maybe Hendo (beat Bisping and Franklin) and Marquardt. I don't think they really stack up against the rest of these guys though. Also Brock and Brian Bowles had fantastic performances even though they only fought one fight each this year.
In any case I think the clear winner this year is Aldo who burst onto the scene and destroyed everyone including the champion. Close runner up is Machida who would be the winner had he defended his title with a little more zest and confidence.
For me it came down to Aldo and Anderson. Granted I don't watch much WEC and have only seen the Mike Brown and Mickle fights. So I might not make the best decision. Aldo looked incredibly fast in his fights, very dominant. He finished all 4 of his fights this year, and won 3 Knockout of the Nights. Anderson Silva fought twice. Defended his title once and continued his streak. He straight out embarrassed Forrest Griffin winning KotN and FotN, I guess that's probably why I considered him. After typing this out, I'd have to to go with the consensus and say Aldo. Now if only I could see more of his fights.
