Sherdog's 2021 Knockout of the Year

Editor’s note: The views and opinions expressed below are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Sherdog.com, its affiliates and sponsors or its parent company, Evolve Media.

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Great knockouts come in all shapes and sizes. Two gargantuan behemoths can club one another over the head for 90 seconds until one falls down. A speedster can register one pinpoint-accurate strike to fell their adversary in a split-second. Some fly, others spin, while even more prefer the single one-hitter quitters that allow them to walk away into the sunset. Others register due to doctors saying “no mas,” referees determining one fighter cannot fight back, or that someone goes down in a heap when their knee gives out. Any form a knockout takes, it provides one definitive moment in our glorious sport, of a kind that few others allow.

In baseball, a score may be so lopsided that even a grand slam that brings in four runs will not even the game. One goal in a soccer match does not bring a team down 0-3 back into contention. Touchdowns in football are worth six points not including the extra point or two-point conversion, but they do little to help if their opponents are up by 20. A hole-in-one for a golfer may put them two strokes under, but it might not be enough to win out the round, let alone the tournament. None of these stick-and-ball sports allow for the finality, the ability to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, the way combat sports do. With four-ounce gloves and no other protective gear beyond a mouthpiece and an athletic supporter, these instances present themselves in a way in MMA that even kickboxing, muay Thai and the like cannot always bring.

The one clean, crisp strike that ends everything, no matter the score, can spell the difference between humiliating defeat and glorious victory. Look no further than the 2018 winner of “Knockout of the Year,” when Yair Rodriguez crumpled Chan Sung Jung with one second to go courtesy of a brilliant no-look elbow. Jorge Masvidal ended his fight with Ben Askren practically before it began in 2019 for that year’s top knockout, lamping the vaunted wrestler in seconds with a crushing flying knee. Many others of years gone by, like Joaquin Buckley’s spinning back kick in 2020 or Edson Barboza demolishing Beneil Dariush in 2017 with the crispest of knees stand out amidst a sea of greats.

To be crowned “Knockout of the Year,” however, there needs to be more than a beautiful finish. Any random fight card from Standout Fighting Tournament or B2 Fighting Series can provide ridiculous violence at a regional level, but it is clear the stakes are not nearly as high as they would be on an Ultimate Fighting Championship pay-per-view show or atop a tentpole Bellator MMA offering, for example. Even if a competitor at Rizin 33 on New Year’s Eve decimated their opponent with something out of an action movie, the die has likely been cast for the best knockout in 2021.

Other triumphant forces throughout the year merit recognition for their greatness, even if they did not earn the top position from the Sherdog panel. Taking nothing away from those not mentioned, the field for spectacular knockouts was immense in this calendar year. The UFC featured more knockouts (171) in 2021 than any other year by a wide margin, and Bellator may have held fewer fight cards than usual, but it was on pace to smash its own record as well. Even feeder promotions like Cage Fury Fighting Championships and Legacy Fighting Alliance brought something to the table, like Paul Capaldo’s spinning wheel kick of Chris Vasil at CFFC 95, or Ricardo Dias shutting George Garcia’s lights out with a knee at LFA 107. Emily Ducote of Invicta Fighting Championships put herself in contention as well when she dispatched Danielle Taylor with a punch and a head kick for strawweight gold.

That embarrassment of riches carried over to the majors, and knockout-ravenous fans able to attend live fights again found even their voracious appetites satiated by the happenings of the UFC over the last 12 months. The best outcome possible for those wanting to find the best knockout of the year presented itself when a litany of worthy options cropped up again and again by some of the biggest names in the sport. Cory Sandhagen staged himself as an early frontrunner as he laid waste to the great Frankie Edgar in February with a flying knee. Rose Namajunas reminded fans why she is one of the best in the world with a wicked head kick of Weili Zhang to win her belt back in April. Jiri Prochazka announced himself to the top of the light heavyweight echelon by devastating “The Devastator” Dominick Reyes with a spinning back elbow in May. A quartet of spinning wheel kicks added to highlight reels for years when Ignacio Bahamondes, Rafael Fiziev, Cub Swanson, and perhaps most remarkably, fan-favorite heavyweight Chris Barnett, ended their respective nights with them.

Even with those and many more in the bank for the Las Vegas-based organization, the honor does not fall to the UFC this year. For the second time since Sherdog started awarding “Knockout of the Year” in 2008, a Bellator fighter found themselves authoring a greater knockout than any of their UFC compatriots – the first went to Michael Page after he implanted his knee into Evangelista Santos’ skull in 2016. Only a small number of knockouts under the Bellator banner stood above the pack, so it might be fitting for the promotion now airing on Showtime that it saved its best for its very last fight of 2021.

At Bellator 272, the last show of the year for the California-headquartered league, Bellator staged a card that provided little in name value with hopes that the individual performances would bolster the event. This proved successful in part, thanks to the likes of Spike Carlyle and Josh Hill, who performed thrilling finishes throughout an evening that dragged for some time. After a lackluster decision in the co-headliner between Jeremy Kennedy and Emmanuel Sanchez, all eyes were on the main event: a bantamweight title attraction between champ Sergio Pettis and former kingpin Kyoji Horiguchi. This contest, one in which the Japanese fighter never lost his belt in the cage and instead surrendered it after suffering an injury, was expected to go as one-way traffic for the ex-champion known now as “The Karate Kid.” Prognosticators and pundits that felt Horiguchi would be the better fighter and cruise to an easy win proved to be correct…until they weren’t.

The former Rizin Fighting Federation bantamweight titleholder had largely lived up to expectations returning from a serious injury, with advantages in practically every category over “The Phenom.” Horiguchi moved faster, he escaped quicker, hit harder and even grounded Pettis whenever he wanted for the first three rounds. The universal scorecards had Horiguchi leading, likely a clean sweep of Round 1-3, and more of the same was coming in the fourth frame as Horiguchi hit an easy takedown early on. The defending champ had little success anywhere the fight took place, constantly fighting off his back foot or hitting nothing but air as Horiguchi seemed a step ahead of him across the board. Midway through that fourth round, some had already moved on to who would challenge Horiguchi next, if he would bounce back and forth between Rizin to defend his thrones, or otherwise imagine the end result of his triumph over Pettis was a foregone conclusion.

All those gears ground to the most emphatic halt when the challenger swung a left hand that Pettis ducked, when the Milwaukee native pushed forward to tie Horiguchi up. At close range right after breaking, “The Phenom” threw a right high kick that skimmed Horiguchi’s dome but had little effect. Ever the elusive fighter, Horiguchi took a step back and aimed to circle out to gain some space with his hands by his waist, and this was the worst possible defensive strategy he could employ in that exact moment. Out of nowhere, Pettis turned through his kick and spun his left fist around to connect cleanly with Horiguchi’s undefended chin.

The sheer speed of the technique appeared so quickly that it looked like little more than a glancing blow, but it was no mere partial connection. Like a bird that’s just had its wings clipped in flight, Horiguchi collapsed to the ground, with his connection to his consciousness completely severed by the strike. Horiguchi’s arms and legs splayed open as he collided with the canvas, in a scene so jarring that Pettis considered a follow-up blow but pulled back realizing his work there was done. In an instant, the 28-year-old defending champ erased all that Horiguchi had accomplished in the past 18 minutes. None of the unofficial round scores in the Japanese fighter’s favor mattered any longer; the strike differential he held by a sizeable margin became a complete afterthought. It marked a lights-out comeback achieved in seconds, totally turning the tide in a torpid tilt for the now-triumphant title defender.

Though Pettis had fallen short in the previous three frames, he had shown signs of setting up this destructive attack in the second and third rounds. On at least three occasions, “The Phenom” followed a strike or move with a spinning back fist, and each missed but offered brief flashes of life for him. To retain the Bellator bantamweight belt in such a fashion, becoming just the third champ in its division’s history to successfully defend their crown at least once, seemed nothing short of remarkable. The actual knockout itself came as a surprise to many observers, as Pettis has displayed punching power over the years but never punctuated a performance with his strikes on a major stage. It clocked in as his first knockout since taking on replacement opponent Dillard Pegg at RFA 8 in 2013, and it was easily his most impressive.

Stunning knockouts have appeared throughout the year on numerous occasions, and in some, the stakes were similarly high – look to Kamaru Usman lancing Masvidal with one punch at UFC 261 in April, or Derrick Lewis punching his ticket to a shot at the interim heavyweight strap by chin-checking Curtis Blaydes at UFC Fight Night 185 in February. This knockout authored by the younger Pettis brother instantly solidified itself as his most impressive win, even though he holds victories over the likes of Brandon Moreno and Joseph Benavidez to name a few. A culmination of the sheer spectacle of a clean spinning back fist knockout, for a major championship, while no other big events drew eyeballs away from it, in a massive comeback over an accomplished name like Horiguchi, all led to the Roufusport export taking home the Sherdog 2021 “Knockout of the Year” honors.