1. Max Holloway: Astoundingly came into his title fight with Brian Ortega as the ever-rare champion underdog, and proved everyone who had even a shred of doubt about his legitimacy wrong with an absolute master class in professional fighting. It was a violent, beautiful performance that should be taught in gyms.
2. Vasyl Lomachenko: Unified the WBA and WBO lightweight titles, taking the latter off of Jose Pedraza on Saturday’s Top Rank ESPN card, putting him on his wallet twice en route to another dominant win.
3. Emanuel Navarrete: Pulled off a huge upset, Isaac Dogboe was a -800 favorite and Navarrete gave him a huge beating and claimed his WBO Junior featherweight title to boot on the co-main of Top Rank’s ESPN card.
4. Valentina Shevchenko: Make that 4-0 for the Bullet against Joanna Violance, her first professionally or in MMA, as Shevchenko is the new UFC Women’s Flyweight champion after putting a fairly one-sided beating on Jedrzejczyk. As for the former strawweight queen, that makes three losses in her last four fights and will probably have to win another fight or two before she’s in title contention again.
5. Jamal Ben Saddik: In lieu of Rico Verhoeven’s reported plunge heavy into acting, Glory may need a new heavyweight champ. Well, nothing proves you’re worthy like winning a one-night, eight-man tournament against seven other of the best heavyweights in the world.
6. Cecilia Braekhus: The First Lady closed out boxing programming on HBO, in what will probably be a trivia question years from now, defending her undispusted welterweight straps against a clearly outmatched Aleksandra Magdziak-Lopes. Fare thee well, HBO boxing, and thank you for the memories. *sigh*
7. Claressa Shields: Another fight, another technical drubbing, but damn, I really want Shields to add some sizzle to her steak, just to increase her own value and hype.
8. Austin Hubbard: Despite some HORRID officiating, it shouldn’t be lost that Hubbard looked fantastic and TKO’d Killys Mota much earlier than what was called to claim LFA’s vacant lightweight title, and is usually customary, a ticket to the UFC.
9. Yodsanklai Fairtex: Closed out the last OneFC of the year with a first-round knockout of Luis Regis, putting an end to an outstanding 2018 for ONE.
10. Nina Ansaroff: That’s four in a row for Ansaroff after being on the precipice of a cut, and a win over Gadelha, and looking great in the process, might mean a ticket for a title fight.
11. Thiago Santos: Holy crap, what a barnburner THAT goddamned fight was. Santos and Jimi Manuwa threw haymakers until one man was left crumpled and one was left standing. The standing competitor was Santos, and he’s been on quite the roll lately.
12. Gunnar Nelson: Gunni didn’t disappoint going against the always-entertaining Alex Oliveira, causing a bloodbath with a surgical Kenny Florian-esque elbow that made Cowboy leak like a faucet.
13. Mayssa Bastos: Won the one-night, 16-woman strawweight grappling tournament at Eddie Bravo Invitational 18, winning the strawweight championship and $10,000.
14. Kell Brook: He says he’s “refreshed” and ready to go. He took a TKO win in his DAZN debut, so it’ll be interesting where Kell goes next.
15. Teofimo Lopez: Knockout of the year contender after starching hard-nosed vet Mason Menard on the Top-Rank card. The 21-year old is destined for big things.
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