1 – Kamaru Usman
When you consider that Kamaru Usman has gone from being a dominant world champion to being in the all-time great welterweight conversation in 2021, that means “The Nigerian Nightmare” had a pretty good year in the Octagon.
Kamaru Usman Welcomes Back Fans With Masvidal KO
First, he scored a February finish of Gilbert Burns in a fight where he had to overcome some brief adversity to win, and then came his blistering second-round knockout of Jorge Masvidal in their April rematch.
That might have been enough to earn him this spot, but then he went and defeated Colby Covington a second time in November to seal the deal. This shouldn’t be a surprise, though, because Usman warned us years ago that he was a problem for anyone at 170 pounds. He wasn’t lying.
HONORABLE MENTION – Francis Ngannou, Dustin Poirier, Sean O’Malley, Derek Brunson, Alex Morono, Valentina Shevchenko, Vicente Luque, Beneil Dariush, Giga Chikadze, Jose Aldo
VOTERS – Juan Cardenas, Thomas Gerbasi, Christoph Goessing, Cory Kamerschak, E. Spencer Kyte, Steve Latrell, Zac Pacleb, McKenzie Pavacich