ESPN Mixed Martial Arts

LAS VEGAS -- The volume in which Donald Cerrone fought in 2011 couldn’t catch up to the volume of jabs coming at him as the year closed out. Cerrone looked to become the first fighter to win five fights in a calendar year in the UFC since Roger Huerta in 2007 when he fought Nate Diaz at UFC 141.

Didn’t happen, as Diaz outboxed Cerrone through three rounds en route to a unanimous decision (30-27 twice, 29-28).

In a year where he was perpetually thrust onto cards, on short notice and with full training camps, against familiar foes and stand-ins, Cerrone insisted that he didn’t overextend himself in 2011. In fact, “Cowboy” made it clear he’s willing to fight as often as he’s needed.

“No, a lot of people were saying that, like I took too many fights -- no I didn’t,” he said at the postfight newser. “Sometimes you show up, sometimes you don’t. I felt flatfooted -- I’m not making any excuses. [Diaz] went out there and was better than me, and that’s all there is to it. I’ll take 20 fights next year, I don’t care. Some days you show up, some days you don’t. And like I said, the dude’s a warrior.”

Cerrone, who was on edge heading into the fight as the feud between him and Diaz escalated throughout the week, rushed in from the bell, looking to settle things as quickly as he did Charles Oliveira and Dennis Siver in his previous bouts (each first-round finishes).

But it was evident early on that Diaz was ready for the onslaught, as the Stockton, Calif., native began landing his trademark jabs in volume and using his reach to mix in some combinations. Diaz strafed him from a distance at will, and, though Diaz had his legs kicked out from under him on numerous occasions, Cerrone never followed him to the ground. Instead, Cerrone opted to cooperate with Diaz on the feet.

Why?

“I wanted to stand, I wanted to play,” he said. “And I got outboxed. I talked a lot of s---, and the bigger, badder dog showed up tonight. My hat’s off to [Diaz], and it was a good fight. And I’d do it again. That’s the one promise I make every fight, [that I’ll fight] to the end every time.”

In other words, Cerrone doesn’t have any regrets for either fighting too often in 2011 or for his approach heading in to UFC 141. There was a lot of talk that, should he get by Diaz, he might be next in line for a shot at the lightweight title against the winner of Benson Henderson/Frankie Edgar. But that was mostly media fodder; Cerrone just wants to fight. Even if the guy he’s fighting mirrors his moving-forward approach and keeps bringing it for three rounds.

“It’s awesome,” Cerrone said of fighting the aggressive Diaz. “It’s what I like to do, and to have it done to me ... that’s what makes fights, right? That to me was fun. That was a good time. I mean, we’re standing there and throwing and that’s what everybody likes to see. So I’m glad I didn’t quit, I’m glad he didn’t quit ... What else can you ask us to do? I think I gave you everything I had.”

He did, and 2011 was a memorable run. And hey, going 4-1 in a calendar year is nothing to hang your head about.

LAS VEGAS -- We entered 2011 with the introductions of smaller weight classes to the UFC -- we go out with a freight collision between two of the more prominent heavyweights to ever have such different muscular strategies. Both Brock Lesnar and Alistair Overeem are former champions. The wrestler has had to overcome diverticulitis; the kickboxer, interrogation. Overeem doesn’t mind media; Lesnar lets you know that the privilege isn’t his, and that he’s crouching down to meet the questions.

Lesnar is also media.

If there’s an odd shape to UFC 141, it’s that for all the opportunists involved, many are genuinely disgruntled for one reason or another. Lesnar doesn’t like the big city lights, nor the unimaginative redundancy of the questions lobbed his way. In fact, he treats most queries as boring and unsatisfactory, particularly ones that ask him what he thinks of what somebody else thinks. This has always been a no-no; if Lesnar has ever tried to make one thing perfectly clear, it’s that doesn’t care what you think.

And he let it be known at the prefight news conference. When asked about being a Vegas underdog against the veteran Overeem, Lesnar said, “the underdog with a big f---ing bite.” This was aimed more at the press than at Overeem. Later, when he was asked about his preference of being a former WWE star or the former UFC champion, Lesnar tried to be civil before working his way around to this: “I go as Brock Lesnar the UFC fighter. You guys can put whatever label you want on me, I really don’t give a s---.”

Needless to say, Lesnar would much rather be a quiet spectacle where you can decipher the answers to your questions. Mostly, he just wants to win his fight and get back to ice fishing for crappie in simple peace.

But this main event is figuratively huge, too. The winner will get a shot at Junior dos Santos for the UFC heavyweight belt. Dos Santos was quoted this week as saying that he’s about 10 days away from being completely recovered from knee surgery. In other words, if the Lesnar/Overeem winner can come out of this thing in good health, a heavyweight title fight may be booked sooner rather than later.

And if Overeem has it his way, that’ll be his gig. He predicted that he would score a first round knockout of Lesnar this week, and stuck to his guns when asked about it at the news conference.

“If I look at the type of fighter I am, and he type of fighter Brock is, we’re not the guys that want it to go to the second round,” he said. “Judging him from his character and his previous fights he’s going to come in for the kill and so am I. One plus one is two.

“This fight is going to be my 69th fight, I’ve been fighting for the last 14 years. When I was 19, I had as many fights as Brock has now.”

Experience. Explosiveness. Stakes. Style clashes. Disdain. Tectonic plates shifting for PPV eyes. Is there anything better than Overeem/Lesnar?

Disgruntled: Part II

If there is something better than Overeem/Lesnar, it’s the co-main event between Nate Diaz and Donald Cerrone, a fight that requires a crash course in psychology to fully appreciate.

There’s Diaz, who doesn’t want to buddy up to the guys he has to fight and therefore made a very rude first impression when he met Cerrone a couple of months back. And there’s Cerrone, who instigates with the best of them, and likes to play mind games. Even with himself. It’s one man’s chaps versus the Stockton slaps.

And there are brink title components here. Cerrone is surging in 2011. He has won four fights, and is looking to turn Diaz into an exclamation mark to cap off his banner year. This is a different guy than the one who lost three times in a 15-month span not so long ago. When ESPN’s Brett Okamoto asked him how he changed things, Cerrone shook it out.

“Just getting my mind right,” he said. “My mind just wasn’t mentally ready [back then]. Those were big fights, title fights. I went to a sports psychiatrist, just getting my brain and my hands and everything to work together, and come Friday it will.”

You saw what happened next. When they squared off for the cameras, Cerrone said something unflattering to Diaz and Diaz responded by slapping the cowboy hat off his head and pushing him. Things are escalating, alright.

“Both of these guys are mean, they’re both nasty,” said Dana White. “They’ve had some words between each other, and they’re both very talented well-rounded guys.”

Disgruntled: Part III

He wasn’t part of the news conference, nor any of the festivities leading up, but Jon Fitch is back in action for the first time in over 10 months. He will face fellow wrestler Johny Hendricks, possibly for the right to take on the winner of Carlos Condit/Nick Diaz for the interim welterweight belt. (Note: This is pure speculation, which is where Fitch’s title hopes live).

The time away has made Fitch contemplative about the sport of mixed martial arts. For those hoping he spent the time figuring out how to incorporate a brawler’s attitude to make himself more attractive as a challenger, you’re about to be disappointed. Fitch has strengthened his resolve to fight the way he fights -- a nihilistic form of wrestling and tooth-gnashing ground-and-pound -- until somebody beats it.

“Like Bruce Lee said, ‘there’s no one best martial art -- it’s got to be mixed all together,’” he told MMA Fighting’s Ariel Helwani. “So now you have guys who mix it all together, and it’s about games. Each individual game, and how they can put their game forward and use their skills set to win fights, and I want to make sure it stays true to that. Because that’s real to me.

“Just setting up two random guys on the street, which is exciting because they punch each other a lot, it doesn’t make sense to me. It’s not a real fight to me. I want to see the best guys, with the best games, up against each other.”

The game between Hendricks and Fitch will be wrestling, and that’s one of the reasons so many are cautiously pessimistic about how it’ll turn out. But give Fitch this -- his resolve is as strong out of the cage as it is in.

Editor’s note: Next week, the ESPN MMA page will roll out its official end-of-the year awards. With winners in each of the most popular categories seemingly pretty clear cut, however, ESPN staffers Chuck Mindenhall and Chad Dundas will take the final week of 2011 to offer up a few “alternative” choices.

Dan Henderson or Jon Jones?

When it comes to 2011’s “Fighter of the year” those are really your only realistic choices and -- let’s face it -- if you don’t think it’s Jones going away, you’re probably just being contrary. If you’re really reaching, you might be able to make a case for Donald Cerrone, but the conversation for this year’s FOTY pretty much starts and stop with those three guys.

That’s not to say there weren’t a number of other notable performances during 2011. Here are our picks for this year’s alternative “Fighter of the year.”

Chad Dundas’ pick: Nick Diaz.

Jones and Hendo may have won a lot of important fights this year, but in the same way 2010 saw the rise of Chael Sonnen as one of the sport’s top draws, 2011 was undeniably Diaz Time.

After years abroad, the world’s least agreeable welterweight returned to the UFC in June and immediately whirled the company’s 170-pound division into a state of unending chaos. It would be impractical to try to list all of the outlandish things Diaz did this year, but here are some of his greatest hits ...

He fumed his way in, then out, then back into UFC title fights while steadfastly refusing to acknowledge a lick of responsibility. He went missing, causing some people to genuinely fear for his well-being only to emerge from hiding via a profanity-laced YouTube video recorded while driving down the California freeway. He threatened (in a roundabout way) to slap MMA’s best-known reporter. He accused Georges St. Pierre of faking an injury to avoid fighting him. He routinely forced UFC President Dana White -- a man seldom lost for words -- to stare helplessly at reporters the way characters on “The Office” sometimes look blankly into the camera.

It was, in short, a command performance from start to finish. Never before have we seen someone so effectively game the system without even realizing he was doing it.

It wasn’t a bad year for Diaz inside the cage, either. He twice successfully defended his Strikeforce welterweight crown in wild affairs against Evangelista Santos and Paul Daley. The latter might have been a solid choice for alternative Fight of the year, had we been so inclined. After vacating that title and returning to the Octagon, he stomped a mudhole in B.J. Penn at UFC 137, then put on what had to be one of the single greatest performances in MMA history at the postfight news conference.

Diaz will begin 2012 as ESPN.com’s No. 2-ranked welterweight and No. 10 on our pound-for-pound list. He has not lost since 2007, but prior to his win over Penn had not defeated much top-flight competition during his current 11-fight streak. His interim title bout against Carlos Condit in February should tell us a lot about his future.

Chuck Mindenhall’s pick: Michael Chandler.

With Jones batting former champions around throughout 2011, guys like Donald Cerrone and Henderson -- each whom had ridiculous years -- will end up getting short shrift in all these totally dismissive “Fighter of the year” categories.

Then there’s Chandler, whose young career is made of just showing up and winning with unusual anonymity. Midway through the year he was leading a Wikipedian life, just a former Mizzou Tiger who wore his singlet well and who somehow got by Patricky Friere to earn a title shot. Next thing you know, 2011 was all (or at least also) about him.

And what a year it was -- the 25-year-old went about winning all four fights he was in and becoming Bellator’s 155-pound champion. The last feat Chandler accomplished by beating perennial top-five lightweight Eddie Alvarez in an epic back-and-forth battle that should have cinched itself as Fight of the year, had it not had the misfortune of occurring on the same night as Henderson's chaotic clash with Mauricio Rua. For those fortunate enough to catch it live (and others who have DVRs), you witnessed the entire width of this kid’s abilities. For 18 minutes and six seconds, Alvarez and Chandler pushed each other to the brink, trading punches and one-sided rounds, and in the end it was Chandler who sunk the rear-naked choke.

Besides the wrestler’s doggedness that he displayed in beating Marcin Held, Lloyd Woodard and Patricky Pitbull en route to his title shot, Chandler showed that he can take Alvarez’s best punch -- which is substantial -- and persevere. He showed he can out-technique you, he can outbrawl you, he can outwork you. As cliché as it sounds, he showed the heart of a champion in 2011.

And as the year closes out, there’s this suspicion as well -- with so much upside, 2011 might not be Chandler’s best when all’s said and done.

Previously: Our picks for alternative Fight of the year, alternative Submission of the year and alternative KO of the year.

Up next: Alternative fight card of the year.

Five fights, five wins. Just once during a calendar year filled with Zuffa-promoted UFC action has that happened, and Roger Huerta's 2007 campaign, along with his place in the Octagon, are distant memories.

Donald Cerrone, a lightweight like Huerta, can match that stretch with a victory over Nate Diaz at UFC 141 on Friday in Las Vegas. Not that "Cowboy," 28, cares much about records or rankings. All he seems to be enticed by is the challenge in front of him, and since January they've come often enough for his liking, even if it means waking up once in a while feeling "like a 100-year-old man."

"I haven't had a day off," Cerrone said this week. To which he added, "I keep improving and improving." He sure has. Imported from World Extreme Cagefighting at the start of 2011, Cerrone has handled the transition into UFC as well as anyone. Ever. Those famed Octagon jitters we've heard so much about? Nonexistent, perhaps in part because of the grueling tests Cerrone faced during the three years Zuffa owned WEC. His time there was not without trials, most notably a stretch from 2009-2010 resulting in three losses over five fights. Keep in mind, two of those defeats came against Benson Henderson, one of which was universally lauded as the best mixed martial arts contest of 2009.

"I wasn't mentally ready," he said. "Those were big fights, title fights."

Cerrone (17-3) is one of three WEC-stamped lightweights that pundits figured could do well in the UFC. He was arguably behind Henderson and Anthony Pettis on the list, but Cerrone was certainly considered capable of handling himself against UFC-caliber lightweights. While Henderson skyrocketed into a title fight scheduled for February against Frankie Edgar, Cerrone has outshone Pettis this year to the tune of three $70,000 performance bonuses. With the extra cash, he purchased a new Hummer for his sister over Christmas, and everything he wanted for himself. Life has changed for Cerrone. Winning fights in the UFC will do that.

What Cerrone can't buy with money, he's working toward in well-earned fight business capital. Cerrone covets a UFC championship. He doesn't know when or how it will come, but he has no problem acknowledging that's what he wants. In that respect, a win over Diaz represents much more than taking his place alongside Huerta, who was close to shot himself. Before Huerta was awarded the opportunity, he had to face a gauntlet. Kenny Florian derailed Huerta, then Gray Maynard ruined him. The next thing Huerta knew, he was fighting for Bellator.

Huerta is a case study in the notion that today's success guarantees nothing for tomorrow. Inside the UFC this may as well be a maxim. Five straight wins in the UFC led Huerta to believe he was special. But reality strikes hard in mixed martial arts, and beginning with the Florian fight he dropped five of six.

Cerrone, in all the beneficial ways imaginable, doesn't resemble Huerta. He doesn't fancy himself an actor. He doesn't demand paydays above and beyond what his contemporaries earn. And he certainly doesn't buy into the idea that he deserves a title shot. Not yet at least. That's something he has to prove first, mostly to himself.

"Am I mentally ready to hold the belt?" he wondered aloud. "That takes a lot of pressure. You have to be an upstanding citizen to be the champion of something."

After suffering the only three losses of his career, Cerrone sought the help of a sports psychologist. He remains a work in progress. But, Cerrone said, he's much better about bringing what he does in the gym directly into the Octagon on fight night.

Even Diaz (14-7) admitted Cerrone fights with a style -- quality striking combined with dead-to-rights submissions -- that's effective and appealing to watch.

"I like coming out and getting it over with," Cerrone said. Look no further than the last 12 months for proof of that.

To put it mildly, expectations are through the roof for this one, which sits as the co-main event for UFC 141. So much so that UFC PR flacks have engaged in late-night Twitter conversations in anticipation. Not that there isn't just cause. Cerrone and Diaz are surly, no-nonsense guys. Their fighting styles appear to mesh perfectly. They don't like one another, and the animus has escalated as the fight approaches.

Wednesday, at the final pre-event news conference at the MGM Grand, Diaz flipped Cerrone's $1,000 cowboy hat from his head and shoved him. This, UFC president Dana White said, was a reaction to Cerrone's verbal jousts. Diaz, 26, tends to perform better when he's angry. Cerrone might too, though he's not entirely sure. He's still working on figuring that out.

"Hate me, love me. I don't care," Cerrone said. "Let's fight."

LAS VEGAS -- For whatever reason, the mixed martial arts community seems to constantly brace itself for the loss of Brock Lesnar.

Even as the former UFC heavyweight champion prepares to return to the Octagon this week after his second bout with diverticulitis, an intestinal disease, some question his desire to be there.

If Lesnar loses to Alistair Overeem in the main event at UFC 141, they ask, won’t that be it? Won’t he retire and disappear into a life of hunting, farming and perhaps the occasional, lucrative guest appearance in professional wrestling?

It’s a halfway popular theory but one that Lesnar doesn’t really understand. Battling back from a serious illness twice in the past 26 months should be, in his opinion, strong evidence that he’s committed to this sport.

“I don’t know why people question the desire,” Lesnar told ESPN.com. “What do I have to go through? What do I have to do?”

Granted, there are reasons that the 34-year-old might not hang around.

He won the UFC heavyweight title in just his fourth pro fight. That built the perception that, yeah, he’d like to win it back, but it’s not necessarily enough to keep him in the sport.

He seems to get as far away from the UFC as possible when not competing. In the cage, his toughest fights arguably have been his past two, and the man doesn’t need to fight to make money. If Lesnar wanted to make a living elsewhere, he could.

Is it that hard to believe, though, that Lesnar would continue in MMA -- even should he lose this week -- simply because he actually enjoys it?

“I like it. I like doing it,” Lesnar said. “I’m not ready to be done. I’ve made a little bit of money here and there, but at the end of the day, I think it’s my identity. It’s who I want to be.”

Despite the long layoffs and a first-round TKO loss to Cain Velasquez in his last fight, Lesnar still believes he is one of the best, if not the best, heavyweight mixed martial artist in the world.

He sees a champion in Junior dos Santos whom he was supposed to fight in June but didn’t because of his health. He was confident in his chances headed into that matchup. The fact that that man is now at the top is likely a source of confidence for him.

“I think I am one of the best heavyweight fighters out there,” Lesnar said. “I can honestly say that because I wouldn’t be sitting here if it wasn’t true.

“Junior has the belt, but he’s one power punch or one submission away from losing it. I’m going to go out and do the best job I can to put me in position to face Junior.”

Yes, Lesnar would have reason to leave the sport the next time he comes up short. He’s got plenty of reasons to continue, too.

Editor’s note: Next week, the ESPN MMA page will roll out its official end-of-the year awards. With winners in each of the most popular categories seemingly pretty clear cut, however, ESPN staffers Chuck Mindenhall and Chad Dundas will take the final week of 2011 to offer up a few “alternative” choices.

It used to be, you could win “Knockout of the year” with a punch. Or maybe, if you were feeling fancy, a high kick.

In 2011 however, the game changed considerably. This year, you likely weren’t even going to be a legitimate contender for a KOTY award without doing something to bend the rules of space and time. Anderson Silva and Lyoto Machida saw to that with their respective front kick knockouts of Vitor Belfort and Randy Couture and the two Brazilians will probably fetch most votes on mainstream KO of the year ballots for those highlight reel finishes.

Truth is though, this is perhaps the most competitive of all end-of-the-year MMA awards. With apologies to Silva and Machida, there was Carlos Condit’s flying knee KO of Dong Hyun Kim to consider. There was John Makdessi’s spinning backfist on Kyle Watson. There was the time in Bellator that Hector Lombard hit Falaniko Vitale so hard that Lombard knew it was over before Vitale’s brain gave his body the memo.

In addition to those gems, there were any number of spinning, flipping kicks on the independent circuit.

It was, in short, a good year for head trauma. With such a wide array to choose from, here are our selections for best alternative knockouts of the year ...

Chad Dundas’ pick: Adam Khaliev versus Alexei Belyaev, League S-70 Fight Nights, Russian Championship First Round, Dec. 22, 2011 in Volgograd, Russia.



Look, I’m not going to sit here and try to tell you that prior to a few days ago I had ever heard of Adam Khaliev or Alexei Belyaev, of something called League S-70 Fight Nights or -- for that matter -- the Profsoyuzov Sports Hall in Volgograd, Russia. The truth is, I had not heard of any of them and even as I sit here today I’m not sure what many of those words mean.

What I do know is this: Khaliev’s “tornado kick” KO of Belyaev is simply too unbelievable to be left out of any knockout of the year discussion. It is so amazing that not much context is needed – which is good, because we don’t have much – except to say that Khaliev caught Belyaev against the ropes two minutes, 26 seconds into their middleweight bout and made him pay with a kick that must absolutely be watched in slow motion to be fully appreciated.

After viewing the video numerous times, I’m still not sure if my favorite part is the pinpoint accuracy of the kick itself or the way Khaliev (whose personal style can best be described as “high school janitor”) nonchalantly walks away after it happens as if to say, “No big deal.” In any case, Khaliev is reportedly now 2-0 in MMA so, yeah, watch out for that dude.

(Credit to the guys at MiddleEasy.com for reportedly being the first to dig this up.)

Chuck Mindenhall’s pick: Cheick Kongo versus Pat Barry at UFC on Versus 4, June 26, 2011 in Pittsburgh, Penn.

The fight between Kongo and Barry was a co-main event that was forced into the main event spot when the whole Nate Marquardt fiasco went down in Pittsburgh. How did the heavyweights handle the spotlight? Let’s just say you know it was a banner year in MMA when this fight isn’t mentioned as Fight of the year. And if there were such a thing as Round of the year (and in some corners there might be), this one would be it.

Everybody knew that it wouldn’t be pat-a-cake with these guys, and Barry moved forward from the opening bell to drop some bombs. Though he was giving up over eight inches of reach, Barry cocked back and threw a big looping right midway through the round like a pitcher delivering a hanging curveball. It hit Kongo square behind his left ear -- traditionally the “black spot” for knockouts -- and Kongo collapsed backwards on himself.

Kongo was out. It was over.

But it wasn’t. Kongo groped for a single leg and avoided the followup damage enough to get back to his feet. For a split second, anyway. Just as soon as he got there, Barry landed another big right to the temple that dropped the Frenchman again, who by now was flailing through the air, windmilling in trouble. If referee Dan Mirigliotta’s stomach was weaker, this fight would have been over.

But again, it wasn’t.

Kongo scrambled to a knee, and latched onto a single leg again, before improbably staggering back to his feet. Then he retreated toward the fence, and Barry came forward again for the finish, remembering the job he left undone against Mirko Filipovic a year earlier. That’s when Kongo, out of nowhere, wits restored from his own deep reserves, planted and countered with a right hook that grazed Barry. Then another right while standing in the pocket landed on Barry’s jaw, dropping him unconscious. Barry’s knee bent under his weight like he was sliding into second. Barry, like the crowd that night in Pittsburgh, never knew what hit him.

Not many fights have three knockouts in a single round, but this one did. And Kongo’s counted most.

Previously: Our picks for alternative Fight of the year and alternative Submission of the year.

Up next: Alternative fight card of the year.

After arriving in Las Vegas on Monday, UFC 141 headliner Alistair Overeem submitted a urine sample at a Quest Diagnostics facility, per the terms of his conditional license issued by the Nevada State Athletic Commission on Dec. 12.

Results of the urinalysis aren't expected to be known by the time Overeem is scheduled to fight Brock Lesnar at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on Friday, NSAC executive director Keith Kizer told ESPN.com.

The conditional license was issued after Overeem failed to provide a urine sample 48 hours following a request from Kizer on Nov. 17. Overeem, who claimed it was coincidence that he flew home to Holland hours after Kizer called the heavyweight's management with the test request, did not provide a suitable sample until Dec. 14.

That test, conducted at a UK laboratory, was clean of performance-enhancing drugs.

Overeem and Lesnar will be subject to two additional urine drops in accordance with NSAC policy. Each must deliver a specimen prior to Friday's fight that will be subsequently tested for PEDs. And, immediately following the UFC heavyweight title eliminator, urine samples will be taken and analyzed for drugs of abuse.

Also in accordance with the terms of his conditional licensure by Nevada, Overeem is subject to two random tests by the state regulatory body within the first six months of 2012.

Editor’s note: Next week, the ESPN MMA page will roll out its official end-of-the year awards. With winners in each of the most popular categories seemingly pretty clear cut, however, ESPN staffers Chuck Mindenhall and Chad Dundas will take the final week of 2011 to offer up a few “alternative” choices.

The 2011 Submission of the year award should end up being the exclusive property of Chan Sung Jung.

Unless we miss our guess, Jung will get a near unanimous nod for SOTY after he essentially discovered the Loch Ness Monster of MMA concession holds by hooking up a twister -- a twister! -- on Leonard Garcia at a UFC Fight Night event in March. The 24-year-old “Korean Zombie” deserves the honor, too, after snapping his own two-fight losing streak and becoming the first fighter ever to use the spine-bending submission to finish a bout inside the Octagon.

Garcia tapped one second before the end of the second round, pigs flew and, somewhere, Eddie Bravo’s physical being dissolved into pure energy and advanced to a higher plane of existence.

So, yeah, pretty mind-blowing.

Not that there weren’t a lot of other great submissions this year as well. Here’s our picks for a couple “alternative” tap outs that could fly under the radar during this year’s MMA awards.

Chuck Mindenhall's pick: Tito Ortiz guillotines Ryan Bader at UFC 132, July 2, 2011 in Las Vegas.

Heading into his fight with Bader, Ortiz hadn’t beaten anybody since Frank Shamrock back in 2006. This is known as a drought. In that way, he was an heirloom that sat funny on the UFC’s mantle. And that night at UFC 132, Ortiz walked into the cage as a 5-to-1 underdog who had wiggled into one last fight through uncommon pleading.

So imagine the surprise when he dropped the younger, faster Bader with a right hand. Just like that, a resurgence of everything Ortiz “was” came flooding back. Next thing Bader (and everybody) knew, Ortiz was transitioning into a guillotine choke. And in another incredulous moment he rocked his head back and winced with the choke on so tight that Bader’s neck was striated red and white. The list of improbables grew. It couldn’t be happening. Yet it was. Everybody waited for the tap. Chuck Liddell -- Ortiz’s rival for so many years -- was squirming on his front row seat swinging his arms around like a DJ on invisible decks. Bader strained against becoming “that guy.” Too bad. He was, he tapped, and Ortiz held on a brief moment longer -- to savor it, maybe -- before jumping up and doing his gravedigger dance. It was a flash of nostalgia that fell over the scene. Ortiz was back. All his haters felt their hearts thawing out for a moment. All his apologists smited their chests.

How can that not stand out as one of the best submissions of 2011?

Chad Dundas’ pick: Joe Lauzon chokes Melvin Guillard at UFC 136, Oct. 8, 2011, in Houston.

No, Lauzon didn’t bust out some kind of previously unseen Argentinean Cravat hold to tap Guillard, but the moxie and nose for the upset he showed at UFC 136 will make his one of the first submissions of 2011 that I tell my grandkids about. Because I assume one of my grandkids’ primary interests will be obscure MMA submissions of the past.

Guillard rolled into their bout as a significant favorite after winning five straight fights in the Octagon. He also came to Houston with a ton of confidence, telling reporters prefight that Lauzon wasn’t big enough to compete at 155 pounds and that the 27-year-old Massachusetts native could only be dangerous if Guillard “let him.”

To all of this, Lauzon just sort of shrugged and said he felt like “The Young Assassin” was underestimating him, especially after Guillard turned up at the UFC fan expo to sign autographs and meet fans the day before their fight. Submissions, Lauzon noted, were his biggest strength and traditionally Guillard’s primary weakness, so he figured if he could get the fight to the mat, he’d have a chance.

He figured right.

Guillard came out blasting from the opening bell, fighting as though it never occurred to him that Lauzon could hurt him. He landed some solid shots, but left himself open for a counter left that sent him skidding to the canvas. When Lauzon pounced on the prone Guillard, it was as if the air sucked out of the Toyota Center in a collective “uh-oh.”

From there, it was academic. Lauzon transitioned to the back and applied a rear-naked choke that forced Guillard to tap just 47 seconds into the first. With it, Lauzon ended any hope of Guillard claiming an immediate lightweight title shot and instead launched himself into contention, as he’ll likely take on Anthony Pettis at UFC 144 in February.

Previously: Our picks for alternative Fight of the year.

Up next: Alternative KO of the year.

Editor’s note: Next week, the ESPN MMA page will roll out it's official end-of-they year awards. With winners in each of the most popular categories seemingly pretty clear cut, however, ESPN staffers Chuck Mindenhall and Chad Dundas will take the final week of 2011 to offer up a few “alternative” choices. To lead things off on Monday, the granddaddy of them all: "Fight of the year."

According to most fans and analysts, the 2011 fight of the year essentially boils down to a three-horse race between Dan Henderson versus Mauricio “Shogun” Rua at UFC 139, Eddie Alvarez versus Michael Chandler at Bellator 58 and Frankie Edgar versus Gray Maynard III from UFC 136.

To that, we say: Bah, humbug.

All three of the above are stellar picks, but we’d be loath honor them at the expense of a few others. There was landmark action inside cages the world over during 2011, so here are a couple of “alternative” options for the all-important Fight of the year ...

Chad Dundas’ pick: Clay Guida versus Ben Henderson at UFC on Fox, Nov. 12 in Anaheim, Calif.

As Octagon-centric FOTY candidates are concerned, it doesn’t get much more “alternative” than Guida versusHenderson, a bout seen only on the Internet and by the live crowd at Honda Center despite the fact it took place on the same card as the UFC’s first live broadcast on network television.

Leading up to the groundbreaking event, Henderson promised that he and Guida would steal the show from heavyweights Cain Velasquez and Junior dos Santos. And guess what? They did. Especially after dos Santos knocked out Velasquez just 64 seconds into their televised main event.

While the big guys called it quits early, lightweights Guida and Henderson gave MMA fans just about everything they could want from a fight. There were wild flurries on the feet and madcap scrambles on the ground, as the pair set the pace in the first with a high-octane striking exchange that saw Henderson drop Guida with a punch. In the second, Guida stormed back and scored with a spinning back fist so out of the blue that it seemed to surprise Guida himself, sending the Chicago native stumbling across the cage. In the third, Henderson fired off a crazy Taekwondo-style axe kick which barely missed. Down the stretch, Guida threatened with a guillotine attempt so tight, it likely would’ve finished any normal human being.

All the while, hair flew like the dickens.

When it was over, Henderson emerged with a unanimous decision win that netted him the chance to take on Edgar for the 155-pound title on Feb. 26 at UFC 144. Guida was defeated on the cards, but emerged with a “Fight of the night” bonus and the satisfaction of participating in perhaps the best fight of the year that nobody got to see.

Chuck Mindenhall’s pick: Dan Henderson versus Fedor Emelianenko in Strikeforce, July 30, 2011 in Hoffman Estates, Ill.

In talking about Henderson and Rua’s five-round war, we forget about the member’s club entertainment that went on with Henderson-Fedor back in July. There was a romantic context to this one similar to Henderson’s UFC 139 battle with Rua; he and Emelianenko were longtime parallel champions in Pride who’d never had the inclination (publicly) to smash one another. Strikeforce dubbed it a heavyweight superfight -- neither man had ever been knocked out, and yet both had stupidly powerful right hands. Hendo barely made the heavyweight minimum, while Fedor looked in the best shape of his life.

When the bell rang, Emelianenko came out swinging. Henderson, always cooperative for this kind of request, dropped his head and swung back. It was a manic first minute. After some long moments in a Greco clinch, when they separated Emelianenko dropped Henderson with a left uppercut/overhand right combo and jumped on him in a heap. Fedor rained down the would-be finishing punches that ended up lulling the eye a little bit, as Henderson was very quietly grabbing onto Emelianenko’s right leg and executing his escape.

What happened next was the sneakiest turn of events of the year; while he slipped out the hatch Henderson threw a right uppercut through Fedor’s armpit that knocked him out. The follow-up right hand woke him back up, but it was too late as Herb Dean jumped in there and signalled the copter. This all happened in the space of ten seconds. When asked what he called the move afterwards, Henderson said very simply, “wrestling” -- his answer as terse as the sequence. It was the first time Emelianenko had ever knocked out, and it added to Henderson’s lore.

Coming on Tuesday: "Alternative" Submission of the year

Had Rich Franklin been more privy to Alexander Gustafsson, we’d either be talking about the rung-climbing Swede as a foil to Jon Jones (more than we are now) or not talking about him at all. It was a tailor-made passing of the guard moment that never happened.

That’s because Franklin, who was offered a fight with Gustafsson at UFC 133 on short notice when Antonio Rogerio Nogueira was injured, had only the foggiest notions about “The Mauler,” so he politely declined the bout. Franklin was interested in marquee fights, and was looking for more of “a name.” Gustafsson wasn’t that.

Not yet, anyway -- but the times they are a changin'.

Gustafsson was supposed to fight Vladimir Matyushenko that night in Philadelphia, but ended up with Matt Hamill when Matyushenko was injured. It was a carousel card, full of patchwork matches that soured Joe Silva’s understanding of the cosmos. Nevertheless, Gustafsson made the most of his moment, and knocked out Hamill in the second round. Those who witnessed his rude treatment of James Te Huna and Cyrille Diabate might have seen this coming. That he very abruptly knocked Hamill out of the fight game for good was the surprise.

To cut to the chase, after that performance, Franklin (along with plenty of others) has now heard of Alexander Gustafsson. And that makes his rescheduled match with Matyushenko this weekend at UFC 141 a sort of catapult moment for the 24-year-old. Already a cusp top-10 fighter in the tumultuous 205-pound division, an emphatic win over the stalwart Matyushenko would legitimize Gustafsson as a contender in 2012. As unflattering as it seems, Matyushenko has become a clear definition of the term “gatekeeper.”

And if any of this seems hurried, consider that this was a similar situation that Jon Jones found himself in toward the end of 2010, when he himself had to get through the brute wrestler Matyushenko. He did, and with menacing ease. What happened next? Jones went about tyrannizing 2011 by earning, winning and defending his belt (twice). So much for bringing these guys up slowly. Jones tried to clean out the division in the space of a calendar year. Now the word you hear bandied about with his name right now is “unparalleled.”

Gustafsson’s rise in the ranks has been far quieter, and realistically won’t be the expedited course that Jones got. But when you look at his poise in the Octagon, his versatility (two wins by KO, two by submission in the UFC), and the upside -- precision, length, chin, desire -- he has the feel of a noisemaker. The difference is the landscape. When Jones beat Matyushenko, the light heavyweight belt was a hot-potato accessory. A year later, the belt is part of the man. And the pool of challengers is fairly shallow. In fact, there are only three names that come to mind who are close to challenging Jones -- Dan Henderson, Rashad Evans and Phil Davis.

Gustafsson has a chance to join that company of Friday night.

How “serious” is he as a contender? It boils down to Matyushenko. Win, and momentum builds into top-10 fights, and guys like Franklin begin to appear as a step backward.

Lose, and the road forks from destination Jon Jones towards the tundra of Krzysztof Soszynski.

Every year the UFC promises it will get bigger, every year it promises to become more spectacular, and every year we doubt that the next 12 months can better those just passed. We should have known better. More »

Chad Dundas: My holiday wish is for an improved scoring system for MMA and better, more educated judges to utilize it. Scoring fights will probably always be a subjective process and one that stirs debate among fans, but MMA only eggs us on when its unified rules rely on murky concepts like “Octagon control” and “effective” striking and grappling. Especially when at times the ringside officials charged with enforcing the rules don’t seem to know a wristlock from a wrist watch. Improving either factor would fill my season with cheer.

Josh Gross: In virtually every respect to the way we live, 2011 boiled down to the principle of fairness. So it's no coincidence that my holiday wishes plays off that theme. I wish PED-free mixed martial artists the ability to fight on fair grounds. I wish promoters fairly, not arbitrarily, mete out justice to the men and women who make them money. I wish hard-working MMA journalists and reporters the ability to fairly ply their trade. I wish that politicians give MMA a fair shake. I wish politicians who don't are fairly booted out of office. And I wish fans feel as if they're getting a fair bang for their buck. Happy Holidays, everyone.


Franklin McNeil: When revealing my Christmas wish, I strive to be practical. It’s important to be reasonable, ask for something that can be attained without placing undue stress on the gift-giver. So this year I opt not to go too far outside my personal box, and ask that UFC matchmaker Joe Silva put Jon Jones and Rashad Evans inside the Octagon together by the summer of 2012. This fight deserves to be made. These two must be allowed to finally settle their personal differences. Besides, this highly anticipated bout has the potential to be very exciting. Silva, of course, will need help in granting my wish. For this fight to have any chance of happening next year, Evans must survive Phil Davis on Jan. 28.

Chuck Mindenhall: All I want for Christmas is Chael Sonnen versus Anderson Silva II. That fight, given how the first went down and all the menacing aftermath, would be huge on the historical context alone. But couple that with Sonnen's dark-tinted badinage, him fighting in Sao Paulo in front of 100,000 throaty partisans, and acting as Silva's true (and only) rival, and it becomes a one-of-a-kind situation. As a stocking stuffer? Give me Dan Henderson against Jon Jones."

Brett Okamoto: My wish, as unlikely as it may seem, is that Anderson Silva finds a way to compete three times in 2012. If there is one negative about this sport, it’s that we only get to see our favorite athletes compete two, three, maybe four times per year. While doing my best to remain professional, I am a fan of Silva. It feels like history is unfolding in front of you when the man fights. In 2011, Silva was in a cage for a grand total of 10 minutes and 29 seconds. He hasn’t fought three times in one calendar year since 2008. If, somehow, he can squeeze that in next year even given his current injury, I’d like to see it.

Darius Ortiz: This combines my X-mas AND birthday wishes so you better be listening up and taking notes, MMA gods. For '12, give me some MMA in NYC. First event, outdoors, at Citi Field. Talk about a "pretending to work" night. Let's make this happen!

Two more welterweight fights have been slated for UFC 143 on Feb. 4 in Las Vegas, the promotion announced on Thursday.

Veteran Matt Brown has verbally agreed to face Chris Cope, while Justin Edwards will tangle with Mike Stumpf. Each fight is expected to appear on the preliminary portion of UFC 143’s card.

All four fighters will look to rebound from recent losses, and each man’s performance could determine whether he remains on UFC’s roster.

Brown (12-11) has struggled to find any consistency in the past year. He has dropped four of his five most recent fights, including a second-round submission loss to Seth Baczynski on Nov. 19 at UFC 139.

Cope (5-2) was the victim of a first-round TKO to Che Mills on Nov. 5. He is 1-1 inside the Octagon.

Edwards (7-2) has come up short in two of his three UFC appearances. John Maguire bested him by unanimous decision on Nov. 5 in Birmingham, England, at UFC 138.

In his UFC debut on Sept. 17, Stumpf was submitted in the first round by TJ Waldburger. But Stumpf (11-3) took that fight just six days before the scheduled event.

Former Strikeforce welterweight champion Nick Diaz faces ex-WEC titleholder Carlos Condit in the UFC 143 main event. They will compete for the UFC interim 170-pound belt.

Former No. 1 welterweight contender Josh Koscheck will face hard-hitting Mike Pierce on the co-feature. UFC 143 will be held at Mandalay Bay Events Center.

If the teaser trailers can be believed, Chael Sonnen’s second recent appearance on a Canadian television show went better than his first, though this week’s offering from MMA’s best self promoter is still likely to fetch its fair share of headlines.

In November, Sonnen quite purposefully made a stir when he walked off the set of TSN’s “Off the Record” after a contentious (and possibly staged, at least on the fighter’s part) interview with host Michael Landsberg. From the looks of the outtakes from Sonnen’s upcoming do-over on the show, he and Landsberg get along fine this time, but the middleweight contender doesn’t miss out on the opportunity to make any number of outlandish statements on his own.

Chief among them: that he’s “done” chasing a rematch with 185-pound kingpin Anderson Silva and that, if he defeats Mark Munoz next month in their title eliminator, he’ll ask UFC brass for a bout with champions like Junior dos Santos, Jon Jones or Georges St. Pierre instead.

“I’m going to become the No. 1 contender on Jan. 28, but despite what you might think, I’m not going to use that voucher to fight Anderson Silva,” Sonnen says. “I’ll be looking at dos Santos, Jones and possibly St. Pierre. I will take that voucher to Dana White and I will pick one of those three guys. My time with Anderson is done.”

Obviously this sounds like just more theater from Sonnen. If he defeats Munoz to once again become the middleweight division’s top contender, there is little possibility the UFC passes on the chance for a second big money bout with Silva. The company is reportedly already eyeing a June fight for the champion in Brazil and it just doesn’t make much sense to have that be against anyone other than Sonnen.

The idea of the former Oregon wrestler moving up (or, laughably, down) in weight to take on one of the UFC’s other champions is admittedly intriguing, but it remains unclear how that would fit into the UFC’s upcoming calendar, even if the organization would let him do it. Dos Santos is fresh off a knee injury and already scheduled to take on the winner of Brock Lesnar’s UFC 141 fight with Alistair Overeem, there is no shortage of 205-pound challenges afoot for Jones and St. Pierre’s own blown ACL could keep him out for the duration of 2012.

No, whether he likes it or not, it appears Sonnen’s path back to a middleweight title bout remains set if he can slip by another powerful wrestler in Munoz at the UFC’s second live broadcast on network television. It’s probably Silva or bust, so long as the 36-year-old champion can get his shoulder in working order in time.

Like any good performer, Sonnen just understands the importance of keeping his audience’s attention. And even if his way is less accurate, it's still a lot more fun.

“The bottom line is, I’m done with the guy,” Sonnen persists. “He and I have no business. He’s cold product. He’s like jheri curls and Pepsi Clear, OK? He’s yesterday’s news. I destroyed this guy back when he was tough [and] that was years ago. He’s so far over the hill and past his prime it’s not worth talking about.”

Brock Lesnar has issued an angry response to the suggestion that he cannot take a punch, insisting that he has proved his chin is up to the task. More »