Rose Namajunas Wins Fighter of The Year Award

The annual World MMA Awards just had their ceremony on Friday night, announcing the winners for  2021 awards.

The UFC women’s strawweight champion Rose Namajunas won the Female Fighter of The Year Award. She won over Valentina Shevchenko, Kayla Harrison, Manon Fiorot, and Mackenzie Dern.

Many fans were surprised by this award because they think UFC women’s flyweight champion, Valentina Shevchenko deserved the award. Both Shevchenko and Namajunas fought 2 times in 2021 and won the fights with Shevchenko winning the two fights with knockouts and Namajunas with one only. However, that’s not the only reason people disagree with the award.

Many question first fight with Zhang Weili because it was stopped early. And the second time they fought Namajunes won via split decision. Many people believe Weili was winning the second fight.

Meanwhile, Shevchenko won the vacant title in 2018 and defended it 6 times thus far. Shevchenko also got the better MMA record – 22-3 compared to Namajunas who has 11 wins and 4 losses.

Another huge winner is the Male Fighter of The Year  – Kamaru Usman. Usman was the favorite to win this award considering his standing in the pound for pound UFC rankings in addition to holding the welterweight title. Usman couldn’t attend the ceremony and was replaced by coach Trevor Wittman. Wittman also won Coach of the Year award.

UFC middleweight fighter Joaquin Buckley won Knockout of The Year as people expected. He delivered a beautiful spinning back kick in UFC Fight Night against Impa Kasanganay.

 

UFC referee Herb Dean won Referee of The Year in spite of several controversial calls this year.

 

UFC Veteran Daniel Cormier won Personality of The Year in spite of being the company man for the UFC and arguing against MMA fighters union any chance he gets.

Cormier has many shows about MMA on the air including DC & RC, DC Check-In, All About That Cake and more.

American Top Team won Gym of the Year award. Many famous fighters train within the gym such as Jorge Masvidal, Dustin Poirier, Robbie Lawler and more.