MMA Fighting’s 2024 Fighter of the Year: Ilia Topuria
Ilia Topuria. Alex Pereira. That’s it, that’s your race for 2024 Fighter of the Year.
And it’s as close as they come.
Let’s start with Topuria, MMA Fighting’s choice for the best performer of the past calendar year, and let’s be frank, the owner of one of the best two-fight runs in MMA history. Topuria didn’t just claim a UFC championship this year; he’s already put himself on track to be the best featherweight fighter of all-time.
That’s not hyperbole. He literally just beat two of the three best fighters to ever compete at 145 pounds, and unless Jose Aldo starts feeling froggy and decides to return to the division, that’s as good as it gets. If anything, saying he beat Alexander Volkanovski and Max Holloway isn’t hyperbolic enough: he destroyed Volkanovski and Holloway in historic fashion.
First, there was Volkanovski, who entered UFC 298 this past February with the UFC featherweight title around his waist. True, Volkanovski was coming off of a disappointing head kick loss to lightweight champion Islam Makhachev, but he wasn’t far removed from a one-sided beatdown of Yair Rodriguez and a thrilling five-round duel with Makhachev in their first meeting that won our 2023 Fight of the Year award. Suffice to say, there was no reason to believe Volkanovski had fallen off in the slightest in a weight class he’d never lost in.
Never, until he ran into Topuria.
In the second round of their headlining bout, Topuria splattered Volkanovski against the cage after connecting with a lightning-fast combination. Again, Volkanovski had never lost at featherweight, much less been laid out like this. It was shocking. Stunning. Truly something fans hadn’t seen before. And given Topuria’s undefeated record, and what we know about him now, inevitable.
If, by some chance, one was inclined to brush off the Volkanovski KO due to supposed lingering effects from Makhachev’s head kick, there was no possible criticism that could be levied against his subsequent knockout of Holloway.
Despite having shared the cage with the likes of Aldo, Justin Gaethje, Dustin Poirier, Conor McGregor, Anthony Pettis, The Korean Zombie, Jeremy Stephens, and countless other hard-hitters, no one had managed to put Holloway down. Gaethje was the only one to score a knockdown, a moment so shocking that the official scoring failed to register it.
So Topuria did the impossible. Again. He cracked Holloway’s chin, multiple times, leaving referee Marc Goddard no choice but to step in and, yes, wave off the bout due to strikes. To Max Holloway falling to strikes.
Still can’t believe it.
So there’s the case for Topuria. When you’re the man to beat in one of the three deepest divisions in MMA, and you got there by annihilating two legends, what else can that add up to but No. 1?
2. Alex Pereira
Alex Pereira isn’t the 2024 Fighter of the Year.
Sounds kind of funny, doesn’t it?
All Pereira did was give the landmark UFC 300 event a proper headliner and knock out Jamahal Hill; then he jumped right back in the cage two months later to save the UFC 303 main event and knock out Jiri Prochazka; then he needed a little less than three months to headline one more time at UFC 307 and knock out Khalil Rountree Jr. Notice the pattern?
If Topuria objectively had the more impressive in-cage accomplishments, Pereira was clearly the people’s choice for this award as “Chama”-Mania spread across America, with fans starving to see what matchup he’d book next and fantasy booking him against every opponent 185 pounds and up. Truthfully, it doesn’t matter who Pereira fights next: He’s the A-side now.
No one in the UFC brings the same level of excitement to a big fight, with “Poatan” liable to flatten any man standing across from him in the blink of an eye. He also seems to bring out the best (see: Rountree Jr., Khalil) and the worst (see: Hill, Jamahal) in his opponents, guaranteeing that extra level of intrigue that makes a star a star.
It’s unclear what’s next for Pereira, even with No. 1 contender Magomed Ankalaev seemingly the obvious choice, but what we can all agree on is that all eyes are on him whatever he decides to do.
3. Dricus du Plessis
In any other year, Dricus du Plessis would have been the runaway winner for Fighter of the Year. Heck, he started off his 2024 campaign by spoiling the first title defense of our 2023 Fighter of the Year, Sean Strickland.
It wasn’t a dominant performance by any means, and were it not for a pair of thrilling final rounds, it would likely be remembered for the meandering opening 15 minutes, but none of that matters: Du Plessis was officially a UFC champion when the curtain closed on UFC 297.
This shouldn’t have been an overwhelming surprise given the South African’s 6-0 UFC record, including a one-sided beatdown of Robert Whittaker, but du Plessis’ unpredictable, unorthodox, and downright funky style just didn’t scream champion in the eyes of many. And yet, he keeps finding a way to win.
When he stepped into the cage with Israel Adesanya, a two-time middleweight champion, the stylistic matchup should have favored Adesanya and the bout should have restored order in the division. Instead, du Plessis swung his chaos hammer to great effect once more and became the first fighter to force Adesanya to tap out.
Two wins against two top 5 opponents, and that’s only good enough for second runner-up? Top spot or not, this was a run to remember.
4. Joaquin Buckley
Looking back now, it’s probably difficult for some of you to remember how down Joaquin Buckley’s stock was just seven months ago.
Despite clearly putting his career back on the right track with a timely drop back down to welterweight, Buckley nearly derailed the whole damn thing with an absurd callout of Conor McGregor after beating Nursulton Ruziboev at UFC St. Louis. Complete with what would kindly be described as an attempt at an Irish accent, Buckley delivered one of the most misguided and pointless challenges ever, resulting in widespread ridicule and bewilderment.
Somehow, it got worse. Buckley went on to feud with Cub Swanson and Daniel Cormier, a pair of beloved elder statesmen who 1) were not actually available to ever fight Buckley in the cage and 2) had Buckley hopelessly outgunned in the court of public opinion. At this point, it looked like Buckley was sabotaging himself as some sort of avant-garde performance art piece, that was the only reasonable explanation for it.
Fortunately for Buckley, his anti-promotion didn’t get in the way of his performances as he went on to knock out Stephen Thompson and then followed that with a logical callout of Kamaru Usman. Now we were getting somewhere. Buckley capped off a 4-0 campaign with a one-sided whupping of Colby Covington, then mentioned Usman, Leon Edwards, and Belal Muhammad as potential opponents, much to the delight of the crowd in UFC Tampa.
There might have been a few more accomplished fighters than Buckley, but no one flipped their reputation upside down as successfully as he did, and now he’s poised to challenge for gold in 2025.
5. Alexandre Pantoja
Alexandre Pantoja might be the best fighter in the world. Don’t blame him if he’d already done the bulk of his most notable work before a UFC belt was even around his waist.
More eyes were on Pantoja this year than ever before, which is probably why there was some disappointment when it came to his two title challengers. Steve Erceg was a nice story, having earned a title shot seemingly because Pantoja needed an opponent to headline UFC 301 in Brazil, but didn’t exactly have the reputation of a pound-for-pound great. And Kai Asakura was a hardcore fan favorite due to his exploits in RIZIN, but he was also granted a title shot with zero UFC fights on his record.
You can only fight who’s in front of you, and while Erceg and Asakura don’t have the same name value as Volkanovski, Holloway, Poirier, Prochazka, Strickland, and Adesanya, there’s nothing Pantoja can do about that, especially considering he already holds multiple wins over the 125 elite. He won an exciting scrap with Erceg and then shut down the intriguing Asakura, excelling to the point that fans were debating whether Demetrious Johnson should end his recent retirement to take his shot at Pantoja.
“Mighty Mouse” flatly denied having any interest in fighting again, but when you’re being mentioned in the same breath as the all-time best in your division, you know you’re doing something right.
Here is how voting for MMA Fighting’s 2024 Fighter of the Year played out
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Belal Muhammad