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FightLockdown's Annual MMA Awards
Written by Brad Taschuk   
Monday, 11 January 2010 00:00
Ladies and gentlemen, the year has finally come to an end, and with it comes time to reflect on the past twelve months in the world of Mixed Martial Arts.  The overriding story in the past year is that 2009 has seen MMA take a higher profile in the mainstream North American media than ever before. 

Between the coverage the UFC has regularly received on ESPN, to CBS and Showtime coming to agreements with a legitimate MMA organization, exposure for the sport is at an all time high.  Even Canadian broadcasters got in on the trend as all three major sports networks in the country regularly feature MMA in one fashion or another. The struggling Japanese MMA scene even received some good news when the ratings for K-1 Dynamite!! 2009 came back at 16.7%, beating out Japan's #1 comedy show in the coveted NYE ratings race.

All in all, 2009 has been a good year for the sport.  However, we're not here today to discuss the state of the union, as it were.  We're here to look at some of the best and brightest from the past year, as decided by FLD's members themselves.  Continue on for FLD's first annual MMA awards.

Grappling Match of the Year

Runners-up: Hideo Tokoro vs. Abel Cullum, Jake Shields vs. Jason Miller.

Winner: Benson Henderson vs Donald Cerrone

With the WEC's Lightweight Champion Jamie Varner on the shelf in 2009, Sean Shelby made the expert move of setting up an interim title bout between Henderson and Cerrone.  We should all be thankful to Varner for his injury troubles, because it resulted in one of the best matches of the year.  We'll save that part of it for later though.  This award is about what match had the best grappling of 2009, and due to Cerrone's constant stream of submissions coupled with Henderson's seemingly impregnable submission defense (and shockingly grotesque flexibility), this match was seen as head and shoulders above the other grappling matches in the eyes of our members, and garners the Kazushi Sakuraba Grappling Match of the Year Award (okay, that name is made up... but the award might as well be named after him).

Brawl of the Year

Runners-up: Bibiano Fernandes vs. Hiroyuki Takaya, Mike Nickels vs. David Heath.

Winner: Diego Sanchez vs Clay Guida

I must preface this by saying that I vehemently disagree with this selection as brawl of the year, but the masses have spoken, and it seems even the best MMA community on the web occasionally makes a mistake.  This selection was obviously based on the first round of the fight, where both fighters stood toe to toe and blasted away at each other for as long as Guida's T-Rex arms would allow him to stand flat-footed in front of an opponent without getting tagged.  It was an entertaining moment, and once you factor in a couple flying knees and a solid head kick, and you have a war of a first round that Guida was lucky to make it out of alive.  The other two rounds didn't quite live up to the first in terms of being a brawl, but were entertaining nonetheless.  In terms of sheer, prolonged, competitive punchy face action however, there were some far better choices at hand.  When all is said and done, Sanchez/Guida takes home the Don Frye Memorial Award for 2009, and Dana White couldn't be happier that his brand is being promoted and furthered by the media... since that is the sole job of media outlets in his eyes.

Event of the Year

Runners-up: UFC 100, Strikeforce: Fedor vs. Rogers.

Winner: DREAM 11

There were many landmark events in MMA in 2009.  From the most thoroughly hyped card in history -- which also turned out to be MMA's biggest mainstream success in -- UFC 100, to Strikeforce's first cards on both Showtime and CBS, to the first ever major card headlined by a female fight, to the aforementioned ratings resurgence of Japan's NYE show, there have been a multitude of cards to look back upon fondly from the past 12 months.  Our members picked one card out of all of them that trumped the competition however. 

DREAM 11 was the final event of one of two Featherweight tournaments in 2009.  It featured both the semi-finals and finals of the Featherweight GP, which included two fights which emerged as 'Fight of the Year' candidates, in Takaya/Tokoro and Fernandes/Takaya.  In addition to this, it featured the semi-finals of the Super Hulk tournament, two Japanese stars getting their can crush on, and a DREAM Lightweight Title bout between Joachim Hansen and Shinya Aoki.  Aoki pulled off an armbar with only four seconds remaining to win the fight and the championship in a bout he was otherwise on his way to losing.  This card hearkened back to a time when Japanese MMA was at the forefront of the sport, and to the delight of many of our members (who admittedly have schoolboy crushes on Japanese MMA as a whole) maybe pointed to a renaissance in the Far East.


Upset of the Year

Runners-up: Mackens Semerzier over Wagnney Fabiano, Ray Mercer over Tim Sylvia, Paulo Thiago over Josh Koscheck, Brian Bowles over Miguel Torres.

Winner: Joe Warren over Kid Yamamoto

This was one of the more hotly debated awards on the forums.  At one point it even got to the point where this writer was accused of rigging the voting so that a certain favorite fighter of his would be spared the dubious honour of being on the wrong side of this award.  Of course, the voting wasn't rigged, people were just encouraged to not vote for said match.  In the end, my ploy worked, as Mackens Semerzier's shocking triangle victory over Wagnney Fabiano was beaten out by Joe Warren's win over Kid Yamamoto by a single vote.

The facts are simple.  Irregardless of injuries or layoffs, Joe Warren, in his second Mixed Martial Arts fight, took on one of the greatest lighter weight fighters in history and beat him, something nobody truly thought he would.  That kind of upset is a once in a blue moon ocassion.  On the other hand, Wagnney Fabiano stepped into his match at WEC 43 with people complaining about him being on the undercard, and fighting competition far below him.  Two minutes later, everyone in the MMA world was shocked that one of the best Featherweight Jiu-Jitsu practicioners had been submitted by (no offense to Mackens Semerzier) a relative nobody.

Both were shocking upsets, and each is deserving of FightLockdown's Upset of the Year award, but Joe Warren's sudden ascent to the top of the sport takes it by the slimmest of margins.

Comeback of the Year

Runners-up: Shane del Rosario over Brandon Cash, John Howard over Dennis Hallman, Kotetsu Boku over Yukio Sakaguchi.

Winner: Scott Smith over Cung Le

This award may as well be named after Scott Smith, since the man has seemingly made a game that only he knows about, where he takes as much punishment as possible in a fight before coming back for the victory... only to try to break that record.  In 2009, Smith employed this strategy effectively on multiple occasions, as in April he used it to overcome Benji Radach in the 3rd round of their fight.  His pièce de résistance however came in his fight with Cung Le on December 19th.  After having his body tenderized by a barrage of kicks from Le and seemingly being out of the fight in the third round, Smith did his best Rocky impression and caught his opponent with a left hook, Le was stunned, and Smith capitalized for another improbable win to add to his collection.  The only thing that could have put a bigger smile on Scott Coker's face than a dazzling performance by Le that night, was a dazzling performance by Le capped off by a signature Smith comeback, making him even more cartoonishly marketable to fans of Mixed Martial Arts.

Performance of the Year

Runners-up: Mauricio Shogun against Lyoto Machida, Georges St. Pierre against B.J. Penn, Jose Aldo against Mike Brown.

Winner: B.J. Penn against Diego Sanchez

2009 was a year marked by elite fighters separating themselves from their contemporaries by some distance.  Georges St. Pierre, BJ Penn and Jose Aldo all proved themselves to be better than the rest of their respective divisions by leaps and bounds.  Lyoto Machida was another fighter expected to reign atop his division unchallenged, but in what was voted the second most impressive performance of the year, Mauricio Rua brought the "Machida Era" to a screeching halt, even if he wasn't successful in prying the belt away from the champion.

No performance was quite as impressive to the members of FLD as BJ Penn's 23 minute utter dismantling of Diego Sanchez at UFC 107.  Although some claimed that because BJ posed obvious stylistic problems for Diego from the start that the performance wasn't that impressive, the majority of voters were not convinced.  Instead, those looking at BJ's dominance saw Diego landing a measely 8 of 150 strikes over the entire course of the fight, numbers that are absolutely unheard of at the top level of Mixed Martial Arts.  They also saw (less surprisingly), BJ put his sublime takedown defense on display once again, stopping each of Diego's 27 takedown attempts.

Although other fighters had impressive performances in 2009, the way Penn made "The Nightmare" seem more like a sweet dream, was far and away the most impressive, capturing FightLockdown's Performance of the Year award.

Submission of the Year

Runners-up: Shane del Rosario's Omoplata, Joe Soto's Gogoplata, Masakazu Imanari's Modified Rear-Naked Choke, Rafael Freitas' Modified Omoplata.

Winner: Toby Imada's Inverted Triangle against Jorge Masvidal

There were a plethora of captivating submissions over the course of the last twelve months.  From Shane del Rosario's Omoplata, to Joe Soto's Gogoplata, to Masakazu Imanari's fascinating modified Rear Naked Choke, to Rafael Freitas' odd Omoplata -- which I've since been told is called the "Barataplata" -- there were a host of great submissions to choose from.  However, it has been very clear for a long time what the Submission of the Year was going to be, and nothing else could hold a candle to it.

For the first two rounds of his fight with Jorge Masvidal, Toby Imada was beaten down.  In spite of this, during a scramble in the third round, he set up and locked in one of the most unorthodox submissions in MMA history, and in seconds his opponent, Jorge Masvidal, was out cold.  The beauty in this submission was partly in it's unique nature, but mostly it was how Imada found and capitalized perfectly on an opening that most fighters in MMA wouldn't have even been able to notice.  Despite the uncommon (to put it mildly) nature of the submission, Imada made it look like something he had practiced every day, rather than a once in a lifetime type occurrence.  That, is what made Tody Imada's Inverted Triangle the Submission of the Year for 2009.

Knockout of the Year

Runners-up: Lyoto Machida over Rashad Evans, Fedor Emelianenko over Andrei Arlovski, Marius Zaromskis over Jason High, Nate Marquardt over Demian Maia.

Co-Winners: Jose Aldo over Cub Swanson and Dan Henderson over Michael Bisping

Knockout of the Year was the only category where a clear winner couldn't be determined through our voting, so we decided that both leading candidates were worthy of the honor.  When looking for a good knockout, people tend to look for two things: a pleasing aesthetic and a devastating result.  Both of these knockouts had both of those qualities, although in different proportions.  Aldo's Double Flying knee was obviously the more artistic of the two knockouts and that carries a certain weight with it.  Yet, Aldo's knees didn't separate Cub Swanson from his consciousness -- although he did manage to open multiple cuts on Swanson's face with a single strike. 

Henderson's knockout provided a much different visual.  Michael Bisping had been circling towards Henderson's right hand for the entire fight, and anyone with an ounce of fight IQ could sense that a KO was en route.  That did not make it any less shocking when Dan Henderson nearly sent Bisping's head into the 14th row with a monstrous right hand, and a follow-up Forearm/Elbow that would have made the Macho Man smile.  Yes, Henderson's effort against Bisping was clearly the more devastating of the two, but at the same time, it lacked some of the flair that would normally be associated with the Knockout of the Year.

That left our voters at an impasse, where eventually neither knockout was chosen over the other, and both ended up as co-recipients of the Knockout of the Year award.


Fight of the Year

Runners-up: Thierry Quenneville vs. Doug Evans, Diego Sanchez vs. Clay Guida.

The lighter classes are well represented in the Fight of the Year category this year, as our runner-up fights come from the Featherweight and Lightweight division, respectively.  Quenneville/Evans is by far the best fight nobody saw in 2009, since it took place on a small Canadian show.  However, through some hard lobbying by this writer, it was recognized as the second best fight of 2009 by our voters.  For a fight that only lasted seven minutes, this fight had just about everything you want in your MMA bouts: Knockdowns, Submission Attempts, Reversals, a Comeback, and eventually, the hometown favorite pulling through as the crowd roared it's approval.  Definitely a classic.
On the other end of the spectrum, Diego Sanchez's split decision victory over Clay Guida was seen by all MMA fans.  The first round was a legendary beatdown handed out by Sanchez, including him rocking his opponent multiple times, and putting him down with a beautiful head kick.  In the second and third rounds, Guida showed his heart and tenacity by doing enough to win the fight on one judge's scorecard, and put a scare into Sanchez as the official result was announced.

Winner: Benson Henderson vs Donald Cerrone

The best fight of 2009 however, as voted on by the FightLockdown members, was the WEC interim title fight between Ben Henderson and Donald Cerrone.  In what turned out to be one of the best five round wars in recent history, and also the recipient of FLD's Grappling Match of the Year award, neither of these exciting Lightweights disappointed.  Cerrone jumped out quickly by almost submitting Henderson on multiple occasions in the first minute of the fight, however Ben bounced back by landing some brutal ground and pound, and taking the round on all three judges' scorecards -- something which would later turn out to be quite controversial. 

The second was more of the same, with Cerrone almost submitting Henderson with an armbar this time, in addition to landing some shots from the bottom which seemed to stun his opponent.  Once again, Henderson remained composed, extricated himself from the comprising positions, controlled top position and rained down blows from Cerrone's guard, again taking the round.  The third was all Henderson, as Cerrone could not stop his takedowns and Henderson's ground assault clearly took the round.  After pleas from his trainer Greg Jackson in the corner, Cerrone came out with renewed vigor in the fourth round.  He almost submitted Henderson once again, stopped some of Ben's takedown attempts, and controlled the stand up to pick up the round.  The fifth round was the best of the fight, as it featured a constant stream of submissions from Cerrone which Henderson defended expertly, although not without being placed in positions which made anyone who watched wince in pain.

In the end, the only sour note to this fight was the decision -- as was the trend in 2009 -- as most observers felt Cerrone should have been granted the win which unanimously went Henderson's way.  It is not all bad news though, as Ben Henderson just defeated WEC LW Champion Jamie Varner in a title unification bout, and is now set to fight Donald Cerrone next.  So a rematch to the 2009 Fight of the Year is only some scheduling details away from becoming a reality.

Fighter of the Year

Runners-up: Georges St. Pierre, Gegard Mousasi.

Georges St. Pierre finished second in the Fighter of the Year voting based on his two dominating performances over BJ Penn and Thiago Alves, to further separate himself from the masses at 170lbs.  The only thing holding GSP back from potentially claiming the top spot was an injury which forced him to sit out from July through the end of the year.  Still, much like 2008, GSP had a spectacular year, definitely worthy of consideration for Fighter of the Year.

Gegard Mousasi was still being billed by some as the breakout fighter of 2009, but the FLD crew knows better than that.  Mousasi's breakout year was 2008, when he captured the DREAM MW Grand Prix and DREAM MW title.  In 2009, Mousasi simply built on that success both figuratively and literally.  In the literal sense, Mousasi moved up a weight class to Light Heavyweight, and continued his run by steamrolling Renato Sobral to capture the Strikeforce LHW title.  He also added wins against Mark Hunt, Sokoudjou and Gary Goodridge, to run his winning streak up to 15 consecutive fights.  This is still only the beginning for the insanely talented 24 year-old, and he'll be in the running for the Fighter of the Year award for many years to come.

Winner: Jose Aldo

Although a select pocket of fans already knew his name and expected greatness from Jose Aldo coming into 2009, few could have imagined that it would come as quickly as it did.  In the first half of the year alone, Aldo recorded 3 victories in a combined 6:02 of fight time.  While his results were impressive, the manner he was gaining those results was... emphatic, to say the least.  His explosive striking got the WEC's attention, and they booked him in a title shot with Mike Brown, who was beginning to look like he'd hold the Featherweight belt for a long, long time.  In one of the most anticipated fights of the year, the mixed martial arts community was almost entirely split on what was thought to be one of the closest matchups in some time.  Come fight night, Jose Aldo had different plans, as he dominated Mike Brown for the entire 6:20 of the fight, stopping Brown and giving him his first defeat in 11 fights.  This instantly propelled Aldo to stardom, and had fans wondering how long the 23 year-old will be able to hold on to his belt, and what challenges lay ahead for him.  In a landslide vote, Jose Aldo is FightLockdown.com's Fighter of the Year.

So there you have it folks, the grammy-style rundown of all the important awards.  If you feel like some egregious error was made in the awards, feel free to head over to the forum and discuss them using the link at the bottom of this article.  2009 was a banner year for the sport, and 2010 is already off to a fantastic start with UFC 108 returning far better results than most would have anticipated, given it's cursed nature heading in.  Hopefully 2010 will produce even bigger and better things for the sport, making it infinitely more difficult for the upcoming year's awards to be determined.  The only way to find out is to stay tuned.