The 10 best MMA fights of 2017
As the year in cage fighting reaches its end, theScore's Themistoklis Alexis looks back at a time of chaos, carnage, and lots of people getting clobbered in the face.
2017's best of MMA:
In the third of our four-part series, we highlight 10 of the most enthralling and violent battles from the past 12 months.
10. Elizeu Zaleski dos Santos vs. Max Griffin (UFC Fight Night 119, Oct. 28)
(Photo courtesy: Getty Images)
On a night that yielded a handful of emphatic stoppages, a fight that went the distance stole the show.
It looked like Zaleski dos Santos would pick up his second UFC finish after rocking Griffin with a flurry and uncorking a typhoon of strikes in a race against the first round's ending bell. As he'd soon find out, though, Griffin wouldn't be so easily tamed.
Despite being helped to his stool between rounds and fighting for much of the second with a shaky grasp of his faculties, Griffin miraculously battled back to make it a nailbiter when his corner should have thrown in the towel, even dropping the Brazilian - however momentarily. His heroics weren't enough to sway the judges, as a composed Zaleski dos Santos weathered the rally with some clever clinch work to take all three scorecards.
9. Frank Camacho vs. Damien Brown (UFC Fight Night 121, Nov. 18)
(Photo courtesy: Getty Images)
Camacho might have missed weight by four pounds, but with some help from an ever-game Brown, he atoned for the transgression in spades.
Clashing on a bill that ran longer than a Friday the 13th marathon, the bruisers gave us something to remember it by with a three-round scrap in Sydney. Camacho walked Brown down with crisp combos while the soon-to-be-bloodied Aussie let haymakers fly. The fighters capped the strikers' ball with 30 seconds of swangin' and bangin,' and when the final horn sounded, two of three judges decided Camacho's volume and cleaner boxing were enough for the nod over the local favorite.
8. Elizeu Zaleski dos Santos vs. Lyman Good (UFC on FOX 25, July 22)
Astonishingly enough, Zaleski dos Santos' first fight of 2017 outdid his second.
For 15 solid minutes, he and Good exchanged leather and shinbones. While neither fighter's hind parts ever made it to the canvas, they still gave those in attendance at Nassau Coliseum more than they bargained for in Long Island's first Octagon sighting. Good tagged the stoic Zaleski dos Santos in spurts, but his reluctance to let his hands fly with regularity allowed the Brazilian to narrowly outstrike him and steal the victory from the New Yorker on two of three scorecards.
7. Derek Campos vs. Brandon Girtz (Bellator 181, July 14)
(Photo courtesy: Bellator MMA)
The anticlimactic ending aside, Campos and Girtz brought the goods in their third dance in the cage.
Each fighter already owned a victory over the other, and the lightweights threw caution, head movement, and any semblance of striking defense to the wind for their tiebreaker. Campos opened up a ghastly cut on Girtz's forehead early, but that didn't deter the latter from pressing forward and trading bombs with abandon as his crimson mask turned into a suit.
Referee John McCarthy paused the action in the second to have Girtz's Jumpman-shaped gash assessed by a cageside physician. After the fighter was cleared to finish the round, he was then ruled unfit to see a third, thereby giving Campos the edge in the trilogy.
6. Tim Elliott vs. Louis Smolka (UFC on FOX 24, April 15)
(Photo courtesy: Getty Images)
The bulk of this year's best fights came in the final quarter, but a pair of flyweights produced an early diamond in the rough on the UFC's spring trip to Kansas City.
From first bell to last, Elliott and Smolka staged a grappling clinic rife with scrambles and baffling transitions at an otherworldly pace. While Smolka valiantly fought his way out of precarious positions and repeatedly brought the action back to the feet, Elliott wrestled him to the canvas at will, scoring takedown after takedown to win the Fight of the Night by unanimous decision.
5. Lando Vannata vs. Bobby Green (UFC 216, Oct. 7)
(Photo courtesy: Action Images)
Some chase gold. Others are content to give spectators the first-rate face-punching they paid to see.
Vannata and Green fit the latter bill, regaling those at Las Vegas' T-Mobile Arena with an instant classic mere days after tragedy befell the city. Vannata took the center of the cage and had Green badly hurt at the bottom of the first, but Green recovered to bloody his opponent up with a stiff, active jab before rocking him in the thriller's final seconds.
Between the hotly contested action and an early illegal knee that cost Vannata a point, scoring the bout proved a thankless charge. The judges' verdict reflected as much, with three tallies as haphazard as the fight itself resulting in an uber-rare split draw.
4. Dustin Poirier vs. Anthony Pettis (UFC Fight Night 120, Nov. 11)
(Photo courtesy: Getty Images)
Much like A Tribe Called Quest's discography, this one had a little something for everyone.
In his third of as many delightfully violent showings in 2017, Poirier busted Pettis open and got the better of him wherever the action took place. After closing out the first with a wild flurry against the fence, the former featherweight repeatedly brought Pettis to the mat and took his back in pursuit of a fight-ending choke when he wasn't out-scrambling him.
With blood leaking from his noggin and halving his vision, the 30-year-old Pettis didn't go quietly. He regained dominant position on more than one occasion and momentarily caught Poirier in a triangle choke. But when Poirier transitioned from an airtight body triangle to full mount in Round 3, Pettis abruptly tapped out with an apparent freak rib injury - one that shouldn't tarnish the 28-year-old Poirier's statement victory.
3. Justin Gaethje vs. Michael Johnson ("The Ultimate Fighter 25" finale, July 7)
(Photo courtesy: Getty Images)
When he joined the UFC earlier this year, Gaethje was the first to admit his record wouldn't be pristine forever. But Johnson wouldn't be the man to sully it.
The longtime lightweight did come close to claiming Gaethje's 0, however, rocking the WSOF import with his notoriously fast hands early in what promptly shaped up as one of this year's top slobberknockers. Long condemned as too hittable for his own good, Gaethje didn't quite hush his detractors, but he earned their respect by recovering, walking Johnson down, and chopping away at his spirit until the UFC vet wilted under endless pressure 4:48 - and a gaudy 104 strikes - into the second round.
2. Eddie Alvarez vs. Justin Gaethje (UFC 218, Dec. 2)
(Photo courtesy: Getty Images)
Alvarez had boldly anointed the people's main event of UFC 218 as the one that would determine the outfit's preeminent purveyor of violence. He and Gaethje did their damnedest to live up to their shared billing.
As Gaethje marched and battered Alvarez's base with his lauded, thunderous leg kicks, the former lightweight champ had a grand old time at the expense of his foe's liver, relentlessly breaking Gaethje down with blistering body work. Even on chewed-up legs, Alvarez never gave his mitts a breather. The game plan bore fruit with just over a minute to go, as he did what Johnson couldn't and put Gaethje away with a knee to the kisser.
1. Yancy Medeiros vs. Alex Oliveira (UFC 218, Dec. 2)
(Photo courtesy: Getty Images)
Before Alvarez added another former world champion to his scalp collection, Medeiros and Oliveira brought a whole new meaning to leaving it all in the Octagon.
After trading knockdowns early, the Brazilian had Medeiros dead to rights late in Round 1, rocking his fellow welterweight with a right hand before teeing off on him against the fence to close it out. But through either sheer, otherworldly resolve or a favor his coaches called in with the cheeky MMA gods, Medeiros made it a true scrap upon hearing the second-round bell.
The Hawaiian found a home for his mitts as Oliveira's gas tank began to empty, and when his foe worked to take the action to the mat, Medeiros made him rue the move by reversing into full mount and raining hellbows on his dome. Oliveira dug deep for takedowns again in Round 3, only for Medeiros to drive a dagger into his hopes by gaining the dominant position. He capped the coronary-inducing comeback with a flurry that finally made Oliveira wilt to the canvas after 2:02.