1. Joe Smith Jr.: Sent Bernard Hopkins flying into retirement, quite literally.
2. Michelle Waterson: Derailed the Paige hype train in quick and emphatic fashion and reminded everyone that she’s truly one of the best female fighters in the world.
3. Giorgio Petrosyan: The Doctor Was In and was on point all night and I’m happy American audiences got exposure to him. He stopped Jordan Watson in the main event of Bellator Kickboxing on Spike.
4. Felipe Pena: 2016 has been Gordan Ryan’s year, but couldn’t quite get to the finish line, getting submitted by Pena at Studio 540 Superfight.
5. Oleksandr Usyk: The Ukranian gold medalist continued his dominant run as a pro, making his first defense of his world crusierweight title. His next stop looks to be the co-main of GGG-Jacobs.
6. Denise Kielholtz: Is the inaugural Bellator Kickboxing Female Flyweight champion, felling her rival Gloria Peritore by split decision.
7. Muhammed Lawal: As I tweeted during the fight, If you want to see the difference between the talent level/depth of men’s and women’s MMA, look at the careers of Satoshi Ishii and Ronda Rousey.
8. Hassan N’Dam N’Jikam: Flattened then-undefeated can-crusher Alfonso Blanco in the very first round, winning the interim WBA World Middleweight title and might be on deck for the GGG-Danny Jacobs winner.
9. Sullivan Barrera: Vyacheslav Shabranskyy was an undefeated favorite, and Barrera was coming off of a listless performance against Andre Ward, so it was quite the shock to see Barrera send Shabranskyy on the canvas three times en route to a TKO in the main event of Friday night’s HBO Latino card.
10. Mitsuhisa Sunabe: The old veteran keeps the young lion at bay to remain strawweight King Of Pancrase.
11. Mickey Gall: Welp, the book is pretty much out of Sage Northcutt. Gall’s BJJ game is really starting to shine on the worldwide stage and despite his odd callout of Dan Hardy, could be a real player sooner than later.
12. Alan Jouban: Made a lot of fans very happy, handing controversial Mike Perry his first loss.
13. Yuki Takei: Defended his 53kg title with a KO in the main event of Krush 71.
14. Urijah Faber: Not often can you go out on your own terms and with a dominant win in your hometown.
15. Bernard Hopkins: On the other hand…
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