1. Darian Cruz/Cory Clark/Dean Heil/Zain Retherford/Jason Nolf/Vincenzo Joseph/Mark Hall/Bo Nickal/J’Den Cox/Kyle Snyder: 2017 NCAA Division I champions. For Cox, this is his third championship, and Snyder is probably the best wrestler in the world.
2. Srisaket Sor Rungvisai: Pulled the biggest upset in combat sports in a long, long, time, dethroning the P4P king with a razor-thin majority decision over Chocolatito, Roman Gonzalez.
3. Bruno Malfecine/Joao Miyao/Rubens Maciel/Lucas Lepri/Otavio de Sousa/Leandro Lo/Joao Gabriel de Oliveira/Ana Talita/Bianco Basilio/Tammi Musumeci/Monique Medeiros Elias/Jessica da Silva/Samela Shoham Lopes/Tayane Porfirio: The IBJJF Pan Jiu-Jitsu champions. Special kudos to Porfirio and Lo for winning the openweight divisions.
4. Gennady Golovkin: In his closest and toughest bout to date, GGG just slid by Danny Jacobs in a very hotly-debated outcome.
5. Blagoi Ivanov: The WSOF heavyweight kingpin reigned supreme and is one of the best heavyweights in the world, putting down Shawn Jordan in around a minute and change.
6. Jimi Manuwa: On the wrong side of 30, as long as Manuwa has his hands, he’s still a main event player at 205, as he demonstrated.
7. Andre Harrison: The Party’s over (I’m so sorry) in WSOF, as Andre Harrison, the shrewd signee from TitanFC, improved to 15-0 and won the WSOF featherweight championship from Lance Palmer in the co-main of WSOF 35.
8. Gunnar Nelson: Gunni locked in a deep choke on the very solid Alan Jouban and the BJJ ace got his win in the co-main on UFC Fight Night.
9. Ken Hasegawa: He’s now 15-1-1, defeating Yoshiyuki Katahira with a first-round body-kick KO in the main event of Deep 78 Impact, and it’s about time for Ken to come out west and test himself against some competition.
10. Bekbulat Magomedov: Claimed the vacant WSOF Bantamweight title over a UD win over Donavon Frelow at WSOF 35.
11. Souffiane Kaddouri:Took Keng Superpro’s Enfusion World 63kg championship at Enfusion Live 47.
12. Amir Mansour: The 44-year old heavyweight does his best to stay relevant with a main event win ovet Travia Kauffman on Bounce TV.
13. Marc Diakiese: Made a name for himself with a brutal KO of Teemu Packalen at Fight Night: London.
14. Marlon Vera: Stepping up on short notice to retire a legend on a head kick is no small feat.
15. Brad Pickett: Tip of his fedora to One-Punch, on an entertaining and groundbreaking career.
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