UFC 2016 Awards: Cage Pages Upset of the Year

Michael Bisping took the fight against Rockhold on two weeks’ notice when Chris Weidman got injured. People laughed at Bisping getting this title shot, wrote him off with saying Rockhold would smoke him in the first. That prediction was close, but for the wrong guy. Michael Bisping walked out there with all the confidence in the world and promptly knocked his bitter rival Rockhold out to win the belt he has been perusing for so long.

McGregor with all of the momentum in the world runs into the hardest Stockton Slap ever thrown and taps on an RNC ending his win streak and quieting every McGregor fan out there…except for Dana White of course. You know, because Nate is a giant heavyweight fighter and all. 10-feet tall and stuff. Yeah. White is a clown.

There are so many to choose from. Conor vs Nate. Cody v Cruz. Tate v Holm. Alvarez v RDA. It truly has been a crazy year in MMA, where anything that could happen happened. It was an absolute roller coaster with champions losing belts left and right, but Bisping was such an underdog I never thought he would have much of a chance in the fight. KOd him with his left pillow hand in the first round.

Taking the fight on a few weeks’ notice, Bisping’s victory over Rockhold in June turned the Brit into a fan-favorite. Avenging his previous loss to Rockhold, and taking home the middleweight belt for the first time in his well-documented career, Bisping’s first-round KO was everything an upset is meant to be.

Bisping’s knockout over Rockhold is the definition of a classic upset. A dominant champion, short notice for the challenger, and ended in an epic KO. Compared to others, the fact that Rockhold had time to prepare, was fighting at his ideal weight, and had already beaten Bisping made it all the more dramatic.

McGregor was considered invincible, he was unbeaten in the UFC and had destroyed everyone in his path. He had just obliterated Jose Aldo, a GOAT, in 14 seconds so everyone was expecting something like that, but McGregor left the Octagon without his hand raised.

Bisping entered this title fight as a +475 underdog, with Rockhold a commanding -650 favorite. Bisping didn’t let those number affect him, as he knocked Rockhold out in just the first round. In the words of Han Solo, “Never tell me the odds!”

Bisping’s first-round KO over Rockhold had me in shock, and easily is my upset of the year.

As high as a +590 underdog, Bisping challenged then-middleweight champion, Luke Rockhold, replacing Chris Weidman with less than three weeks to prepare. Bisping had already lost to Rockhold, so his chances were slim to none, especially with the circumstances. It only took Bisping one round to knock Rockhold out to win the title and the Performance of the Night bonus.

She was like +350, think that’s the biggest one.

Coming into the fight a 4:1 underdog. Having only 10 days to prepare for the fight Diaz was written off as soon as the fight was announced. Everything was going to plan as McGregor knocked his opponent around in the 1st. Then the 2nd round happened. The younger Diaz brother started tagging McGregor, again and again, mocking him all the while and delivering one of his signature Stockton slaps. In a move of desperation, McGregor shot for a takedown and that was all she wrote.

In the last event of the year, yet again the unpredictability of this crazy sport was set in stone when the aggressive, hot-headed, short-fused Cody Garbrandt out-Cruz’d the relaxed, soft spoken and unhittable target Dominick Cruz to win the bantamweight belt. Who’d have thought it?

Tate submitting Holm in the last moments of the title fight. She was losing the fight at that point.

Diaz did not have a training camp and defeated one of the UFC’s biggest superstars.

“If you have money to bet, bet Bisping! He won’t win, but you will make a huge return on investment if my some miracle of god he wins. Rockhold via Death TKO.” …and boy, was I right and wrong.

Not many people gave him a chance against McGregor. I knew he had it all along. (It’s true, here’s our prediction article from the event)

Fresh off his wild Fight of the Night win over the legendary Anderson Silva, Michael Bisping stepped up on seventeen days notice to face the man who handed him his most recent loss, Luke Rockhold. “The Count” defied the odds and shocked the world at UFC 199, wrecking Rockhold with an impeccable outburst of strikes. His crazy rematch with Dan Henderson at UFC 204 deservingly earned him a contention for Fighter of the Year, but while I think Garbrandt deserved it more, that crowning moment of finally reaching the pinnacle of the sport was the best underdog moment of 2016.

No one took Garabrandt by decision, let alone a dominant decision where he displayed better movement than Cruz, taunted him throughout, and picked him apart. Most saw him as one-dimensional, and that may have hurt Cruz – he clearly believed it as well. Garabrandt and his team, however, clearly spent a lot of time refining his game. Bisping was in the running, but most fighters can land a punch. Few show the five rounds of brilliance that Cody did.

Technically speaking, this is the biggest upset given Spicely’s +500 odds going into Fight Night. But really, I laughed when this matchup was announced. A TUF reject who was just submitted by a striker in his Octagon debut against this Brazilian killer who’s won by knockout in all of his UFC victories. This had Brazilian-mismatch written all over to please the Brasilia crowd. Then Spicely showed off some incredible grappling to take out Santos in the first round with a rear-naked choke. Just stunning. That’s what makes this sport the best.