And The Winners Of The 12th Annual World MMA Awards Are…

The 12th Annual Fighters Only World MMA Awards show went down last night on CBS Sports Network, and if you happened to miss it I don’t blame you. CBS-SN is pretty high up the dial and normally the awards go down in July so unless you’ve been paying way too much attention to the internet in an attempt to escape family Christmas responsibilities, it may have flown under the radar for you.

But it did happen. Dolph Lundgren was there handing out the awards, which were determined based on votes from the MMA community. As we mentioned, the show normally goes down in the summer but COVID-19 did the thing and delayed the stuff … you know the drill.

So don’t think of this as the 2020 Fighters Only World MMA Awards as much as it is the Jan 1st, 2019 to June 30th, 2020 Fighters Only World MMA Awards. Which explains why dusty events like Jorge Masvidal’s KO of Ben Askren won KO of the Year. Or Demian Maia’s sub of Ben Askren won Submission of the Year.

We kinda feel like Ben Askren deserves an award for being on the receiving end of so many award winning finishes.

Anyway, let’s get to the winner’s list, shall we?

• Male Fighter of the Year: Israel Adesanya
• International Fighter of the Year: Israel Adesanya
• Female Fighter of the Year: Amanda Nunes
• Upset of the Year: Alexander Volkanovski defeats Max Holloway
• Breakthrough Fighter of the Year: Jorge Masvidal
• KO of the Year: Jorge Masvidal KOs Ben Askren
• Submission of the Year: Demian Maia submits Ben Askren
• Fight of the Year: Weili Zhang vs. Joanna Jedrzejczyk

• Comeback of the Year: Stipe Miocic defeats Daniel Cormier
• Media Source of the Year: ESPN
• MMA Journalist of the Year: Ariel Helwani
• Refere of the Year: Herb Dean
• MMA Personality of the Year: Joe Rogan
• Best MMA Programming of the Year: The Joe Rogan Experience
• Coach of the Year: Trevor Wittman
• Trainer of the Year: Phil Daru
• Gym of the Year: American Top Team
• Fighting Spirit of the Year: Dustin Poirier for his Good Fight Foundation
• Leading Man of the Year: Dana White
• Promotion of the Year: UFC

Some obvious choices. Some interesting choices. And a couple awards that should probably just be renamed for the person that wins them every year. Discuss your thoughts on the winners in the comments, Maniacs!