1. Anthony Joshua: Took care of business, was never in trouble aside from Pulev’s rabbit punches, and never let Kubrat Pulev show anything in retaining his three world championships.
2. Juliana Velasquez: Broke Ilima-Lei Macfarlane’s stranglehold on Bellator gold in her fifth defense after controlling her for the better part of five rounds on Thursday, becoming the new Bellator world champ at 125lbs.
3. Masayoshi Nakatani: Climbed off the canvas twice to stop Felix Verdejo and score the biggest upset of the weekend in the main event of Top Rank’s ESPN card.
4. Charles Oliveira: Banked a dominant, dominant win over Tony Ferguson, who’s probably over as a top name and contender, earning three 30-26s in the co-main of UFC 256.
5. Gonnapar Weerasakreck: For the second time in his career, defeated Kenta Hayashi, this time for the K-1 Lightweight championship.
6. Kaynan Duarte: In the main event of a massively-loaded Who’s Number One card, Duarte slapped on a rear-naked choke to legend Rodolfo Vieira.
7. Lourdes Juarez: The only boxing world championship to change hands was Juarez defeating Guadalupe Martinez Guzman in Mexico City on Saturday to claim WBC world gold at junior bantamweight.
8. Deiveson Figueiredo/Brandon Moreno: Figueiredo and Moreno, in a main event that was made merely three weeks ago, went out at the vacant UFC APEX and burned the entire structure down for the Flyweight title. These two put on an all-time classic that ended in a draw. Figueiredo had a point deducted for low blows, so if he can keep his gloves up in the rematch, he should be alright. And yes, there will be a rematch! Dana White immediately addressed that in the post-fight press conference! Good lord, storylines and depth in the flyweight division! It can be done, Dana!
9. Chris Colbert: Retained his interim WBA strap at junior lightweight with a title-round TKO of Jaime Arboleda in the main event of Showtime’s PBC card on Saturday night.
10. Lawrence Okolie: In the co-main of Joshua-Pulev, Okolie needed just two rounds to put away Nikodem Jezewski, claim secondary gold, and keep his cruiserweight world championship destiny alive.
11. Kevin Holland: Nobody in the UFC is having a better 2020 than Holland, who’s gone from also-ran coming off of a loss to bonafide title contender. On Saturday, he kicked that gate wide open, knocking out Jacare Souza in his toughest test to date.
12. Ciryl Gane: In only his seventh professional fight, he stopped a former dominant world champion in Junior dos Santos with an elbow and moved into the upper-echelon of the heavyweight division.
13. Morgan Charriere: Capped off the Cage Warriors triple-header over the weekend with a beautiful body-shot knockout of Perry Goodwin in the main event of Cage Warriors 119.
14. Nathias Frederick: BOOM BOOM! And with that two-piece, Frederick is still Cage Warriors middleweight champion after closing out Cage Warriors 118 on Friday.
15. Jake Hadley: Absolutely dominated Cage Warriors flyweight champ Luke Shanks, not only pitching a shutout, but doing it on wild scores of a 50-44 and 50-42. Shanks had absolutely nothing for Hadley, and Hadley took his title from him for it.
Honorable Mention:
Jonathan Haggerty: In the main event of ONE’s second Big Bang event, Haggerty earned a unanimous decision win over Taiki Naito.
Cub Swanson: Rumors of Cub’s demise have been greatly exaggerated! Swanson came in as an underdog against fellow hard-nosed veteran Daniel Pineda, starching him with a nasty shot.
Sam Shewmaker: In the makeshift main event of Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship 15, Shewmaker put down undefeated fill-in Bobo O’Bannon in two minutes.
Kennedy Maciel
Mayssa Bastos
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