2017 was year with many highs and lows in the MMA world. What was the biggest MMA disappointment of 2017?
(*This list was compiled before UFC 219.)
FRANK HYDEN, MMATorch Columnist
Jon Jones continuing to stupefy with his lack of awareness and decision-making skills is probably number one for me. He’s talked so often about learning from his mistakes and becoming a better person than he pops a PED test. The foolishness with the UFC middleweight division is as big a disappointment or bigger, but you can lay the blame for that on multiple people. Either way, both of these things sucked and were huge disappointments.
RAFFAEL IGLESIAS, MMATorch Contributor
George St Pierre’s vacating of the belt and leaving again is disappointing albeit not all that unexpected. As much as I expected St Pierre to not defend his belt, I held out hope that he wouldn’t just ride off again but he did. In the end, this should not taint the career of possibly the greatest MMA fighter ever, but it’s not a good look on him or the organization.
DAVE KOULA, MMATorch Contributor
Conor McGregor not fighting in MMA in the calendar year. I might just be being selfish here, but Mystic Mac not competing in the sport that made him, is just a bummer, especially with Max Holloway looking so damn good against Jose Aldo twice. The Floyd Mayweather stuff was fun, and I get that he’s got more money than God now, but I just want to see the man perform. Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone going 0-3 on the year is the runner up, because who doesn’t want the best for Cowboy?
SEAN COVINGTON, MMATorch Contributor
It’s got to be Jon Jones. He peeked our interest with talk of a move to heavyweight with a fight against Brock Lesnar, but because he is a dirty cheater we will probably never see it.
Holly Holm gets an honorable mention because she couldn’t win that title, she should never had been in that title fight coming off of a two-fight losing streak. I hope she is blasted back to obscurity by Cris Cyborg, two overrated fighters fighting for a division made for them to be paraded around by the UFC because they can’t do it in any other divisions! That is the real disappointment of 2017, the women’s featherweight division, not the division itself but the reason it was created!
COLE HENRY, MMATorch Contributor
Joanna Champion (Joanna Jędrzejczyk) losing her belt. I just didn’t see it coming, and yeah honestly, I was pretty disappointed. I love Thug Rose (Rose Namajunas), I just imagined that when Joanna lost the belt, it would be in an epic contest.
NOW CHECK OUT THE PREVIOUS ROUNDTABLE: What was the Fight of the Year in 2017?
Leave a Reply