The 2017 Heavies Awards - Breakout Fighter of the Year - Winner: Francis Ngannou

Breakout Fighter of the Year?


  • Total voters
    397
  • Poll closed .
Going with Volkan here. Went from short notice replacement against OSP and beat him, then booped Cirkunov and Manuwa to win a title shot. If that's not a breakout fighter, from "never heard of him" tapped in Bellator to UFC LHW title shot. People were already talking about Ngannou coming on strong after his power kimura at the end of 2016. Ortega may be my other, although I've been paying attention to him for a while, his sub of Cub was next level.
 
Both Ngannou and Oezdemir are fighting for the title while being relatively unknown before, so it's definitely between the two.
 
All of said fighters had a great year. Really tough just to pick one.... Went with Thug Rose. Waterson was really being hyped. The Joanna fight.... does anything even need to be said.
 
All of said fighters had a great year. Really tough just to pick one.... Went with Thug Rose. Waterson was really being hyped. The Joanna fight.... does anything even need to be said.
It was a tough pick with Rose, Till, Ngannou and Volkan. Good year for up and comers. UFC is probably still dying though.
 
Volkan Oezdemir basically came out of nowhere and then all of a sudden you wake up and he's fighting for the belt at 205.

I considered voting Ortega but he's been something of a prospect for a while now, and still needs a win or two further more to get into the title picture.
 
my man volkan. Ngannou only fought once and has been getting pushed since beating AA

volk beat osp on short notice and ko'd misha and jimi in less than a minute
 
Going with Volkan here. Went from short notice replacement against OSP and beat him, then booped Cirkunov and Manuwa to win a title shot. If that's not a breakout fighter, from "never heard of him" tapped in Bellator to UFC LHW title shot. People were already talking about Ngannou coming on strong after his power kimura at the end of 2016. Ortega may be my other, although I've been paying attention to him for a while, his sub of Cub was next level.

I voted Ngannou, but Volkan was a close second imo.
 
Surprised Ngannou wasn't a lock for this one.

Ortega has 1 solid win.

He knocked out what are often viewed as "chinny" past their prime heavyweights. I'm not too surprised. For me it was between him and Volkan. I went with Volkan just because he was 3 and 0 and Ngannou was 2 and 0 in 2017. Both definitely made a splash.
 
As far as creating a buzz, Its Colby, but I'm not voting for Colby, he made a Hemisphere mad. T-City and Till both made a buzz but nothing compared to Ngannou and Volkan. I went with Ngannou because while he was breaking the punching record with a billion Units, Volkan was going to jail.
 
Oh man, sherdog is riding Ngannou hard.
This should be a no contest for Volkan, they guy came from nowhere and to a titleshot in a year starting by a late replacement against OSP, followed by 2 first round KOs, whereas Ngannou beat two old HWs...
 
Went with Volkan.

1-0 in street fights. :cool:
 
You can't compare Sean "The Hipster" O’Malley to the rest of that list... He hasn't done anything of note yet.
With him being untested so to speak I get he hasn’t had the breakout fight but it’s only a matter of time imo that his 9-0 record will have that CCB22D6B-CF4E-4711-8A2C-FA8FBAD8C93F.jpegmoment and his breakout,”big name” fight will bring him to the forefront of mma.
 
With him being untested so to speak I get he hasn’t had the breakout fight but it’s only a matter of time imo that his 9-0 record will have that View attachment 323037moment and his breakout,”big name” fight will bring him to the forefront of mma.

I think he's more like Uriah Hall - popular because he spinning shitted some bums and because he looks different, but will get smashed against decent opposition. Also his debut was a gimme which he still made look difficult and boring.
 
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