2021 Others Receiving Votes Awards: Knockouts of the Year
Kamaru Usman baptizing Jorge Masvidal is likely to take home top honors from most outlets, but there were more than a few other fantastic finishes in 2021
Kamaru Usman’s knockout of Jorge Masvidal at UFC 261 wasn’t just the top knockout of the year, it might be my favorite knockout of all time.
Seriously.
From the moment the fight started coming together, I fully understood Usman’s desire to run it back following their short-notice first encounter on Fight Island the previous summer.
Sure, there was more money to be made, but despite doing next to nothing in that fight, Masvidal kept running his mouth about what would have happened if… and that kind of thing can get tiresome quick, especially coming from a guy that has never won a major title and whose biggest career win came over another ultra-popular journeyman.
So to have Masvidal, who hadn’t fought since being swept on the scorecards at UFC 251, running around, claiming he was going to “baptize” you when no one in the UFC had previously beaten you, yet alone put you to sleep, had to be grating AF.
Which is why Usman playing the role of the pastor in April was just so poetic and sweet.
Not only was it a clean, one-shot, we’re done here knockout, but the image of Masvidal’s entire torso twisting with the impact of the blow, sweat suspended in mid-air after being dislodged from his person looked like someone getting doused with holy water.
Perfection.
The Top 4 this year are likely to be the same across the board, with Usman, Jiri Prochazka, Cory Sandhagen, and Rose Namajunas claiming those positions, but there were plenty of other knockouts worth mentioning as well.
Here they are in the Others Receiving Votes Knockouts of the Year.
Alessio Di Chirico (vs. Joaquin Buckley)
This one set the standard for the year right out of the chute, occurring in the second main card fight of the year, foreshadowing the upsets and unexpected results ahead.
Buckley was the one entering with all the momentum, having scored the 2020 Knockout of the Year against Impa Kasanganay and then following it up with a knockout against Jordan Wright. Di Chiricco was on a three-fight losing streak and felt like a sacrificial lamb being led to the slaughter, but “Manzo” had other ideas, blasting Buckley with a kick upside the head a little over two minutes into the first round.
That first main card on ABC was pretty fun overall, and this was a great knockout to start off the year.
Abdul Razak Alhassan (vs. Alessio Di Chirico)
It’s only fitting that I follow Di Chirico knocking Buckley out with someone knocking Di Chirico out as it just keeps the whole “See how quickly things can change?” angle going.
This was Alhassan’s second fight at middleweight after an inconsistent and fragmented run at welterweight, and it literally could not have gone any better. He threw one strike, landed it, scored a knock down, and secured a finish, and it only took him 17 seconds. Just like that, he was someone to keep an eye on in the 185-pound weight class.
And guess who he’s fighting next? Yep — Joaquin Buckley, who rebounded from his loss to Di Chirico with a third-round finish of Antonio Arroyo.
Kai Kara-France (vs. Rogério Bontorin)
Before he blasted Cody Garbrandt at UFC 269, Kara-France reminded everyone that legitimate power has the potential to change a fight at absolutely any point, no matter how the rest of the fight had gone with his first-round knockout win over Bontorin at UFC 255.
For the first 4:30 of the opening stanza, the Brazilian controlled the fight, spending the majority of the frame on the City Kickboxing representative’s back, searching for chokes and grinding out major control time. With 30 seconds left in the round (give or take), Kara-France finally shook Bontorin off his back, and when he disengaged from a clinch with 15 seconds remaining in the fight, he attacked.
A right hand stunned Bontorin. The uppercut that followed put him on the brink of being out. The next right hand send him falling forehead-first into the canvas.
Three clean shots — that’s all it took for Kara-France to go from “clearly losing the round, maybe 10-8” to securing a knockout victory.
A Matthew Semelsberger Two-Pack
“Semi the Jedi” scored two wins in 2021 in a combined 31 seconds.
I can’t say for sure because I haven’t done the research, but I would wager that is the quickest pair of victories in the modern UFC era, and both were as a result of a clean right hand down the pipe; the first coming against Jason Witt in March, and the second opposite Martin Sano Jr. at UFC 265 in September.
A former collegiate football player with NFL ambitions who committed to MMA before finishing school, Semelsberger is an intriguing welterweight with clear power who could potentially make some noise in the next couple years as he continues to garner more experience and further hone his craft.
Dan Ige (vs. Gavin Tucker)
The same night Semelsberger iced Witt, Ige wasted no time putting away Tucker.
As Tucker bounced forward in his southpaw stance 20 seconds into the fight, Ige let loose a right hand that landed right on his chin, putting the Newfoundlander down in a hurry. Referee Mike Beltran stepped in and the fight was over.
After breaking into the Top 10 last year, Ige has cemented himself as a perennial tough out in the middle third of the Top 15 — a veteran litmus test for hopefuls like Tucker, a gnarly assignment for returning competitors like Josh Emmett, whom he faced earlier this month, and someone that should spend the next several years holding down that spot in the division.
Cheyanne Vlismas (vs. Gloria de Paula)
I’ve watched this knockout more than 50 times and I honestly still can’t say with absolute certainty that de Paula’s hand was up when Vlismas — they Buys — kicked her square in the face.
Vlismas took de Paula down less than 30 seconds into the contest, tried to advance, but stepped out of the Brazilian’s guard when she couldn’t get anything going on the ground, and as de Paula looked to stand — THWAP!
“Holy Heck!” Brendan Fitzgerald shouted on the broadcast, showing incredible control, as Vlismas raised her arms in celebration. Somehow, de Paula wasn’t sleeping, so the fight continued for a couple more seconds, with Vlismas forcing her to the canvas, climbing into mount, and raining down elbows until the bout was officially halted at the one minute mark.
This was one of those strikes where you saw it coming and thought it was going to be illegal, and while the replays showed de Paula’s hand lifted off the mat just — and I mean just — as Vlismas connected, it still makes me nervous to see her throw it every time I watch it back.
Dricus Du Plessis (vs. Trevin Giles)
Dricus Du Plessis is one of those dudes you just automatically have to watch every time because he carries a ton of power and gives zero fucks. Each of his first two UFC appearances have ended in stoppage victories, but in each bout, he’s taken his fair share of shots too.
The finish of this fight is a perfect distillation of that, as Giles was the aggressor, backing the South African into the fence behind long punches. But as Giles reset, Du Plessis pawed out with a jab and quickly followed with a right hand that found the mark and put Giles on the deck.
“Stillknocks” is 16-2 overall, 2-0 in the UFC, and the last person to defeat KSW champ-champ Roberto Soldic, who is on the short list of the best fighters competing outside the Octagon at the moment. He was scheduled to face Andre Muniz a couple weeks back at UFC 269 before withdrawing, and should land a similar assignment whenever he’s ready to return in 2022.
Julian Erosa (vs. Nate Landwehr)
There aren’t many dudes that are more consistently entertaining than “Juicy J,” who is almost never in a boring fight.
Long and rangy and down to scrap, Erosa fights with his hands down, constantly searching for ways to finish. Sometimes it leads to him getting lit up, other times it produces finishes, but most of the time it results in festivals of chaos like we got here.
Erosa stung Landwehr with a right hand about 40 seconds in, but “Nate the Train” wore it well and stung Erosa with a right of his own in the clinch. That kicked off a flurry of action where they were both throwing, Erosa moving forward and Landwehr moving backwards, and when Erosa got Landwehr close to the fence, he hit a perfectly timed, perfectly place flying knee that ended the fight in a flash.
As far as fights that last less than a minute go, this was a really good one, and a knockout that deserves mentioning in these year-end pieces.
Lerone Murphy (vs. Makwan Amirkhani)
There are times when fighters get caught with a knee and finished and it’s kind of a fluke or the byproduct of something else being thrown, like when Damir Hadzovic caught Marcin Held when the former was throwing a kick as the latter changed levels, or when Marlon Moraes’ knee caught Aljamain Sterling doing the same and resulted in Aljo getting frozen doing a “dab” on the canvas.
This wasn’t one of those times.
Murphy knew Amirkhani would be changing levels — he’s a wrestler, and the fight was in the second round, where “Mr. Finland” begins to struggle — and when he did, the unbeaten British featherweight timed him up perfectly, putting knee to jaw and picking up his third straight victory.
The 2021 Others Receiving Votes Awards return tomorrow with a look at the top submission finishes of the year. Catch up on other fictitious hardware we’ve already handed out here: