As a refresher, our “Comeback” award is about coming back from inactivity or major injury (that we know about) and in doing so, really impressing. You can see more details at the bottom of the post about specific qualifiers.
Comeback Fighter of the Year: Georges St. Pierre (2-time winner)
Talk about a no-brainer. GSP comes off a massive layoff and stops the Middleweight champion, capturing UFC gold in a second division. He’s the best ever.
Honorable Mentions: Al Iaquinta, Chan Sung Jung
Rizin Fighting Federation returns on Sunday with their ninth event. The card features, among other things, three more first round bouts for the 2017 Rizin Bantamweight Grand Prix as well as a “wild card qualification bout.” There were three bouts on the April show with #41FW Kyoji Horiguchi, #83BW Khalid Taha and #74BW Takafumi Otsuka advancing to the second round. The follow chart shows the ranking points for all tournament competitors over the last two years.
As you can see the two standouts from a rankings perspective are Horiguchi and #18BW Shintaro Ishiwatari. Horiguchi’s ranking dipped recently due mostly to inactivity, but he is still the odds on favorite to take the tournament. Ishiwatari is currently riding a four-fight winning streak with wins over Ostuka, #55BW Victor Henry, #258 FW Jonathan Brookins and #35BW Rafael Silva. The reigning bantamweight King of Pancrase also has the highest Rankings Momentum of all the competitors at +8.04.
As a recap, most “Fighter of the Year” awards on other sites are really “Breakout Fighter of the Year” awards in that fighters who win, were usually not top fighters in the beginning of the year, but became so by the end of the year.
A fighter like this can and has won our FotY awards, but our award is more about maintaining a high standing during the award year by performing well a sufficient number of times and against a sufficient quality of opponents. It is more comparable to a season MVP in major team sports, not a playoffs/surprise MVP.
Winner: Stipe Miocic
Another fairly tight call, Miocic takes it with a 3-0 year, all being decisive victories with a title win and title defense.
Runner-Up: Michael Bisping
You couldn’t have went wrong putting Bisping at #1, who also went 3-0 with a title win and title defense. The difference being that two of his victories were extremely close against two legends of the sport at the very end of their respective careers.
3rd Place: Demetrious Johnson
DJ gets third place for the second straight year. I’m sure many would expect to see Conor here, but DJ is just one of a few fighters who had two decisive title wins in the year without a loss.
As a recap, most “Fighter of the Year” awards on other sites are really “Breakout Fighter of the Year” awards in that fighters who win, were usually not top fighters in the beginning of the year, but became so by the end of the year.
A fighter like this can and has won our FotY awards, but our award is more about maintaining a high standing during the award year by performing well a sufficient number of times and against a sufficient quality of opponents. It is more comparable to a season MVP in major team sports, not a playoffs/surprise MVP.
Winner: Amanda Nunes
Nunes broke all kinds of barriers in 2016… the sexual preference, the woman to retire Tate and possibly Rousey, but to win and defend the title in the same year is “fighter of the year” material.
Runner-Up: Joanna Jedrzejczyk
Joanna repeats again at the #2 spot. Like Cyborg, her robotic dominance can sometimes be lost behind the front page, but only fighting twice in a year is a small piece in that unfortunate reality.
3rd Place: Cristiane Justino
A relatively dull year (again), but status quo for her (again). With the 145 division opening up, there’s a chance for her to really start to show her worth, but the recently failed drug test casts a dark cloud over all of that.
Men: Jose Torres
It is very slim pickings on the men’s side of the award, but Jose Torres made the Top 100 and fought for Titan FC.
Honorable Mentions: Adilson Ramos
Women: Gabi Garcia
She’s a fighter without a division, but one that ran up a 4-0 record. The competition was extremely lackluster, but the early career prospect building system just isn’t there for MMA and especially not for the women.
Honorable Mention: Syuri Kondo, Amber Leibrock
Most Improved Fighter of the Year: Emil Weber Meek
Meek pulled off a dominant victory over Rousimar Palhares in the upset of the year and followed it up with a victory of Jordan Mein in the UFC. After averaging a rank of approximately #450 in 2015, he is now a borderline Top 10 fighter in the division with a UFC contract.
As a refresher, our “Comeback” award is about coming back from inactivity or major injury (that we know about) and in doing so, really impressing. You can see more details at the bottom of the post about specific qualifiers.
Comeback Fighter of the Year: Dominick Cruz
Yet another ACL tear cost Cruz over 15 months away from the sport, but he returned to take the championship by defeating Dillashaw in January. Although Cruz lost the title to Garbrandt at the very end of 2016, it’s hard to argue a better candidate for this award.
Honorable Mention: Khabib Nurmagomedov
| Division | Estimated # | 12/2011 | 5/2014 | 8/2016 |
| Heavyweight | 757 | 8.3% | 6.9% | 6.2% |
| Light Heavyweight | 758 | 8.8% | 6.7% | 6.2% |
| Middleweight | 1285 | 14.7% | 12.7% | 10.6% |
| Welterweight | 2070 | 20.4% | 18.3% | 17.0% |
| Lightweight | 2453 | 21.8% | 20.2% | 20.2% |
| Featherweight | 2114 | 14.4% | 17.4% | 17.4% |
| Bantamweight | 1600 | 9.0% | 11.4% | 13.2% |
| Fly+Straw | 1109 | 2.7% | 6.4% | 9.1% |
– Male Only
The eligible pool (all active fighters over the “starter” rating) has increased only 1.4% in the past 2.25 years, after jumping over 13% in the previous 2.5 years. The growth of MMA has seemed to come to a halt on the global scale.
The divisional trend is simple. Less fighters in the heavier divisions, more fighters in the lighter divisions, especially at the very bottom of the weights.
Using some updated info, I have to make a slight revision to the “average fighter” weights in the past two studies. In 2011, the average male fighter weighed in at roughly 171 pounds. In 2014, this went down to 166 and now, it is about 163 pounds.
Some immediate rematch results from MMA history:
– No contests excluded.
| Fighter | Days | Result | Date |
| Carla Esparza^ | 706 | WIN | 2014-12-12 |
| Jorge Patino | 663 | LOSS | 1999-01-08 |
| Cain Velasquez* | 602 | LOSS | 2015-06-13 |
| Georges St. Pierre* | 567 | WIN | 2012-11-17 |
| Vitor Belfort | 560 | LOSS | 2015-05-23 |
| Tyron Woodley | 546 | ???? | 2016-07-30 |
| Rose Namajunas^ | 517 | LOSS | 2014-12-12 |
| Vitor Belfort | 504 | LOSS | 2011-02-05 |
| Dominick Cruz~ | 477 | WIN | 2016-01-17 |
| Jon Jones~ | 476 | WIN | 2016-04-23 |
* – Champion
~ – Stripped of Championship Prior
^ – Was in recent TUF
Excludes tournament bouts
Currently, we have record of 99,038 fighters with at least one win and/or one draw and/or one loss. No contests are ignored for this statistic.
60,747 of them haven’t fought in at least three years. Out of those:
| Win | Loss | Draw | Count | Perc |
| 0 | 1 | 0 | 24,007 | 39.52% |
| 1 | 0 | 0 | 8,894 | 14.64% |
| 0 | 2 | 0 | 4,381 | 7.21% |
| 1 | 1 | 0 | 4,169 | 6.86% |
| 1 | 2 | 0 | 1,742 | 2.87% |
| 2 | 0 | 0 | 1,430 | 2.35% |
| 2 | 1 | 0 | 1,373 | 2.26% |
| 0 | 3 | 0 | 1,197 | 1.97% |
| 2 | 2 | 0 | 836 | 1.38% |
Nearly 40% of professional MMA fighters, fight once, lose, then never fight again.
More to come..
With his submission win over the featherweight champion Conor McGregor at UFC 196, Nate Diaz didn’t just score a stunning upset over the UFC’s biggest star. He also earned his biggest ever payday as a fighter, with $500,000 base pay and most likely some percentage of Pay-Per-View sales on top of that. He also snagged an extra $100,000 in the form of ‘Fight of the Night‘ and ‘Performance of the Night’ bonuses. This puts Nate’s total ‘of the Night’ bonus count at 14, the most in UFC history, passing by Anderson Silva and Joe Lauzon who are tied for the second place with 13 total bonuses. Nate’s ‘Fight of the Night’ bonus count now totals 7, putting him in a two-way tie for #1 with Frankie Edgar in that category.
As a recap, most “Fighter of the Year” awards on other sites are really “Breakout Fighter of the Year” awards in that fighters who win, were usually not top fighters in the beginning of the year, but became so by the end of the year.
A fighter like this can and has won our FotY awards, but our award is more about maintaining a high standing during the award year by performing well a sufficient number of times and against a sufficient quality of opponents. It is more comparable to a season MVP in major team sports, not a playoffs/surprise MVP.
Winner: Conor McGregor
For us, it was a very tight call this year. But having fought three times, two of which involving some form of the Featherweight title. It’s hard to deny that McGregor is the fighter of the year for 2015.
Runner-Up: Rafael dos Anjos
The reign of Rafael dos Anjos at Lightweight is starting to look like one that can last a very long time. Although he only fought twice in 2015 — which is usually the case once a fighter gains a major belt, his presence as a top fighter in the sport is one that sees him as high as #2 on some pound-for-pound lists and #3 on ours.
3rd Place: Demetrious Johnson
Like “Cyborg”, the #3 for Women’s Fighter of the Year, DJ did nothing overly impressive this year, but defended his belt twice in dominant fashion. He still owns the Flyweight division and lingers toward the top of the pound-for-pound lists.
As a recap, most “Fighter of the Year” awards on other sites are really “Breakout Fighter of the Year” awards in that fighters who win, were usually not top fighters in the beginning of the year, but became so by the end of the year.
A fighter like this can and has won our FotY awards, but our award is more about maintaining a high standing during the award year by performing well a sufficient number of times and against a sufficient quality of opponents. It is more comparable to a season MVP in major team sports, not a playoffs/surprise MVP.
Winner: Joanna Jedrzejczyk
Won the UFC Strawweight championship and defended it twice. Not much else to say here as she runs away with the award.
Runner-Up: Holly Holm
A 3-0 year, capped off by stopping Ronda Rousey, winning the championship and (perhaps) cementing herself as the greatest woman in combat sports history.
3rd Place: Cristiane Justino
A relatively dull year, but status quo for her. Her potential is obviously limited by the division she fights in, but Holm’s comments about considering the idea of fighting Cyborg leaves us hopeful.
Men: Sergey Pavlovich
An impressive 2015 that saw Pavlovich run his record up to 6-0 (all knockouts) and get into the Top 50 at Heavyweight earns him the award. Take notice that the three honorable mentions are also from Russia.
Honorable Mentions: Vladimir Mineev, Petr Yan, Velimurad Alhasov
Women: Cristina Stanciu
After starting at Bantamweight, she’s now fighting in the “wrong” division (Flyweight) to make waves in the UFC. Though, it appears likely she can make 115. She also has the “look” so it if she keeps winning, it may not be too long until she’s in the UFC — maybe on a European card.
Honorable Mention: Kanna Asakura
