Sherdog’s 2024 Beatdown of the Year

What makes a “Beatdown of the Year?” To borrow a phrase: We may not be able to define it, but we know when we see one. By definition, they are mismatches—whether that was known in advance or a booking only turned out to be a mismatch once the cage door closed—but hundreds of lopsided bouts take place every year at every level of the sport and only a few leave us saying, “Man, that was a beatdown!”

Memorable beatdowns are usually protracted; part of our visceral reaction is often a Rocky IV-esque “Throw the damn towel!” and some examples, such as Glover Teixeira’s 2020 drubbing of Anthony Smith, leave fans and pundits arguing afterward over whether the fight should have been stopped earlier—and whose fault is was that it was not. Other times, however, the mauling is more concise, as in the case of Anatoly Malykhin’s first-round destruction of Reinier de Ridder in 2022, or Conor McGregor’s 40-second lightning strike against Donald Cerrone in 2020.

2024 offered several prime examples of the art of the beatdown. Vote-getters this year included Renato “Moicano” Carneiro’s “Moicano” thrashing of Benoit St. Denis in the headliner of UFC Fight Night 243 on Sept. 28, and Jon Jones making it look real, real easy against former heavyweight champ Stipe Miocic at UFC 309 in November at Madison Square Garden.

However, one candidate won in a landslide when it came to the signature beatdown of 2024. Heading into the main event of UFC Fight Night 245 on Oct. 19, Anthony Hernandez and Michel Pereira were the two hottest middleweights in the Ultimate Fighting Championship. Hernandez carried a five-fight win streak into the cage that night, staking it against Pereira’s seven straight in a matchup that held immediate Top 10 implications and would place the winner on the cusp of the 185-pound title picture. It was both men’s first main event in the UFC, with the implied promise of more marquee bookings in the future for the winner.

The fight was closely matched—on paper, at least—and the betting lines closed with Hernandez as a slight favorite at around -130. Still, even those who picked “Fluffy” to win expected him to have to weather an early storm from the explosive Brazilian. After all, Hernandez had made his bones in the UFC as a fighter who outlasted adversity and took over late, starting with the shocking submission of Rodolfo Vieira that had kicked off his win streak in 2021, and by 2024 could have appeared in the dictionary next to the word “builder.” Conversely, if Pereira—one of the most athletic, offensively unorthodox fighters in UFC history—was going to win, conventional wisdom suggested that he would uncork some kind of flying capoeira kick within the first two rounds.

Once the streaking middleweights squared off that night at the UFC Apex, however, that expected dynamic never materialized. Hernandez came out aggressively, mixing feinted level changes, actual takedown attempts, and a variety of strikes including a spinning wheel kick, keeping the “Demolidor” reeling and reactive in the way that Pereira typically does to others. Hernandez had already gotten the better of a competitive first frame before taking Pereira down too late in the round to put in any real work.

In Round 2, Hernandez took Pereira down early, and the slow-motion rout was on. Hernandez spent most of the five minutes either pummeling Pereira from top position, or forcing him to defend desperately against attempts at back control and topside chokes. When the horn sounded, interrupting a stream of ground-and-pound by the Californian, it closed out another 10-9 round, but it was growing increasingly obvious that the dam was about to break.

It broke in Round 3 when Pereira, who had shown surprisingly solid cardio since moving up to middleweight despite his cartoonishly muscular physique and balls-to-the-wall pace, began to show signs of fatigue. At that point, Hernandez picked up his hard hat, grabbed his punch pail, then proceeded to beat Pereira over the head with both for the next twelve minutes. He grounded Pereira within seconds in each of the final three rounds, pouring on punches and elbows, threatening to move to mount or take Pereira’s back anytime the Brazilian tried to move.

By the final round, Pereira was a wreck, lumped up and exhausted, barely able to lift his arms to defend himself, much less fight off one more takedown attempt by his opponent, who appeared fresh as a daisy, relatively speaking. Midway through Round 5, with Pereira stuck yet again underneath the relentless “Fluffy” and eating a steady salvo of elbows, referee Herb Dean had finally seen enough. He pulled Pereira off of his beleaguered foe at 2 minutes, 22 seconds of the round, awarding him the well-deserved TKO victory.

The fight was brutal to watch, and the most eye-opening takeaway—along with Pereira’s incredible toughness to withstand that kind of punishment—was the realization that as impressive as Hernandez had been over the last several years, he was a man built for five-round fights all along. Hernandez’s performance at “UFC Vegas 99” ensured that he will have plenty of opportunity to continue proving that in 2025, beginning with his scheduled clash with onetime Legacy Fighting Alliance rival Brendan Allen in the headliner of UFC Fight Night 252 in Seattle in February. Whether the coming year ends with Hernandez fighting for a UFC title remains to be seen, but what is certain right now is that his fight with Pereira is Sherdog’s “Beatdown of the Year” for 2024.