There has been some brilliant performances this year, like Rua in the 2nd Machida fight, Evans against Rampage, Werdum against Fedor, Lesnar against Carwinbut at the highest level i.e. world title fights, I don’t think there has been many classic fights, in that we haven’t had a fight where both fighters have been unbelievable.

Most of the classic, Fight of the Year contender matchups seem to be lower down on the card this year. My Fight of the Year is a tie between two.

Firstly, Little Nog against Jason Brilz. A brilliant fight that had pretty much everything you could ask from an MMA fight. A true underdog against a heavy favourite, and the underdog nearly beats him. On top of that, there was great striking on show, some lovely BJJ, good ground games from both guys. It just had everything, and was one of the most exciting fights, maybe because I wasn’t expecting much.

The other fight is from the UFC 116 card just gone by- Leben v Akiyama was another brilliant fight. As you can tell, I love an underdog (am British after all), and Leben stepping in to that fight just two weeks after his last one, against Akiyama, who I thought was a huge favourite, and he wins with 20 seconds remaining.

It’s a shame Rashad v Rampage wasn’t 5 rounds, because I thought that was shaping up great. Awesome wrestling from Rashad, but I got the feeling it could still end at any second from a KO from either guy. Didn’t get any closure from that fight, hopefully we’ll see it again if Rashad takes Rua’s title and Rampage puts a win or two together.