Dominick Cruz – He beat Faber, who is likely the best fighter in history south of Lightweight.  Cruz, along with Aldo, are both gunning for the aforementioned mythical title.

Georges St. Pierre – Though he beat a true #1 contender in Shields, his standing is hurt by the fact that he only managed one fight in 2011.

Jose Aldo – Two title defenses, but two workmanlike decisions in which he badly gassed against Hominick, who was struck down by one punch in his next fight.

Junior dos Santos – Took down the mighty, although inactive, Cain Velasquez to gain the Heavyweight crown.  His other win was against the seemingly spent Shane Carwin.

Dan Henderson – If you’re going for style points, it’s hard to argue against Henderson.  Knocked out Feijao, made another dent in Skynet, and went “life or death” with Shogun.

In the FightMatrix world, “fighter of the year” is determined by rank strength, divisional strength, and performances within the calendar year.

3rd Place: Miesha Tate

Winning one of the select few women’s titles that matter, Tate only fought one time within 2011 — though that one fight was enough to score her a 3rd place slot on the year.

2nd Place: Cristiane Santos

She remained the top woman in the sport, although like Tate, she also only fought once.  Her win, a 0:16 knockout over Yamanaka, the #1 contender who also saw time on the division dominance list, coupled with holding the top spot in the entire sport, was enough to edge out Tate for 2nd place.

1st Place: Naho Sugiyama

Probably not the popular choice in the largely US-based MMA world, but when you look at the real data, it’s hard to argue against this selection.  Although fighting in perhaps the weakest division in women’s MMA (though our lowest division runs up to 110lb), Sugiyama went 4-0 on the year, winning the JEWELS GP in this division.  Three of her four wins were over fighters currently ranked in the Top 4.  In what was a weak MMA year for this gender, Sugiyama gets a lot of love from the FightMatrix system.

Honorable Mention: Sarah Kaufman

Only three fighters in history have 20 or more wins and have avenged all of their losses.

Gilbert Melendez is the only fighter with 20 wins to avenge both of his losses once (total_loss-avenged_loss = 0).

Georges St. Pierre avenged both of his two losses, but later beat Hughes twice (-1).  He is the only 20 win fighter to drive the point home and end up with a net difference of less than 0.

Miku Matsumoto had an interesting journey onto this list.  She lost to Misaki Takimoto twice, then went on to beat her twice.  She also avenged losses to Lisa Ward and Carina Damm (0).

Bas Rutten almost made the cut.  He lost four times, twice to Ken Shamrock, both of which he did not avenge.  Though he did return to beat Funaki once and Frank Shamrock twice (+1).

Yuka Tsuji (sort of) backdoors her way into the discussion.  She avenged her early loss to Ana Michelle Tavares, but later lost to Mei Yamaguchi.  Though, she did hold a prior win over Yamaguchi.  There may likely be other instances of this as well.

Admittedly, selecting a comeback fighter of the year depends on a few factors, some of which are subjective.  Certainly, the math and data points are available to filter down to a select few possibilities before proceeding with the actual selection of the winner of said award.  Luckily, for 2011, the choice is pretty obvious.

The 2011 Comeback Fighter of the Year is: Shinichi Kojima

After suffering a decision loss to Jussier da Silva and losing his #1 Flyweight ranking, Kojima tore his ACL and suffered a 25 month layoff.  Kojima returned in August 2011 and took decision wins over Masaaki Sugawara and Kiyotaka Shimizu, propelling Kojima back up to #4 in the division.

Honorable Mentions: Ed Herman, Michal Materla

To the FightMatrix system, the most noteworthy match is based on cumulative rank strength accompanied by divisional strength.

In 2011, the most “noteworthy” match was: Frankie Edgar KO(4) Gray Maynard.

This saw the #1 versus the #2, for the most important championship in the deepest division (at least by number of competitors).  The only other #1 vs. #2 in 2011 (in the men’s — at least) was the first match between Edgar and Maynard.

The FightMatrix Most Improved Fighter of the Year for 2011 is: Michael Chandler

Chandler, who was unranked at the end of 2010, skyrocketed all the way up to #5 in the Lightweight division, with wins over highly ranked fighters such as Patricky Freire and Eddie Alvarez.  After going 4-0 in 2011, his career record stands at a perfect 9-0.

Honorable Mention: Robert Peralta

With upsets of the year, we use pre-bout point totals and also put some exclusions into play — both fighters cannot be suffering from any inactivity penalty and the losing fighter must have a respectable rank — within the top 20. We also do the math two ways; proportional raw point difference and net point difference normalized by division.

Using both equations, the upset of the year was Robert Peralta SD(3) Hiroyuki Takaya

Honorable Mention: Jake Ellenberger KO(1) Jake Shields

Had this taken into account the actual outcome (Split vs. KO), you could certainly argue for these placements to be flip-flopped.

It’s probably no surprise to most, but our women’s rookie fighter of the year for 2011 is Ronda Rousey.

She fulfilled our basic requirements of debuting and fighting three times in the 2011 calendar year.  Furthermore, she has earned the #3 ranking in the 145 division, which may turn into the #2 ranking depending on Baszler who is likely to drop down to 135 or go inactive.  She has also finished all four of her opponents by submission, within a minute.  This was a no-brainer.

As for a follow-up on our 2010 winner, Liz Carmouche, she has not fared so well.  Although fighting against top opposition, she has went 0-2 on the year.

2011 Honorable Mention: Sara McMann