Sherdog.com’s 2015 Fighter of the Year

5. Luke Rockhold

For Rockhold, championship validation has been a long time coming.

When Zuffa purchased Strikeforce, expectations were high for the promotion’s final middleweight champion. At the time, the UFC middleweight division was at a crossroads; Anderson Silva had effectively cleaned out the division, and the influx of Strikeforce talent seemed to be the most significant source of potential title challengers since the Pride Fighting Championships acquisition. In a notoriously thin division, Rockhold was more than just a welcome addition: He was a legitimate threat.

When he made his Octagon debut, Rockhold was 10-1 and had not tasted defeat in over five years. However, his first fight in the UFC was a tough break: Walking billboard for testosterone-replacement therapy Vitor Belfort separated Rockhold from consciousness halfway through the first round with one of the most spectacular finishes the sport has ever seen. Hopes of a champion-versus-champion fight between Rockhold and Silva were quickly dashed. To make matters worse, less than two months later, Silva was knocked silly by an undefeated up-and-comer named Chris Weidman. Rockhold seemed to get no respect from the masses, and no favors from Lady Luck.

If his introduction to the UFC was at all demoralizing, Rockhold did not show it. Instead, he got back to work and reeled off three straight wins against highly touted opponents, all of which ended impressively within six minutes. As 2015 approached, Rockhold started to put himself out there as the best middleweight in the world. Meanwhile, newly minted champ Weidman started racking up title defenses. The writing was on the wall.

First up for Rockhold was former light heavyweight champion Lyoto Machida. “The Dragon” had taken Weidman to the brink and come up short in 2014, but he closed out the year with a 62-second destruction of C.B. Dollaway. What was expected to be a fight of human chess between two top-tier middleweights ended up being a one-sided drubbing. Machida had not been dealt with so thoroughly since losing to Jon Jones four years prior. The win gave Rockhold a shot at the title. His boasts of being the best 185-pound fighter grew louder and more legitimate by the day.

Meanwhile, Weidman defended his title for the third time against a diminished Belfort. It was on: Strikeforce vs. UFC, California vs. New York, American Kickboxing Academy vs. Serra-Longo Fight Team. The narrative elements were all there for Rockhold-Weidman, but ultimately the anticipation rested in the fact that this was easily the most talent-laden title fight in the history of the division.

Weidman started strong early, outworking and outgrappling his challenger. Starting in round two, though, Rockhold began to find his rhythm. He stuffed Weidman’s takedown attempts and winded the champion with heavy kicks to the body. Rockhold continued to counter effectively and avoid any hazardous situations until the round ended. The fight appeared to be tied.

The third round picked up with more of the same. It was back and forth, until the end of the round. Weidman attempted a spinning kick, and Rockhold capitalized. He rode Weidman to the ground and proceeded to mount him, raining down a barrage of elbows and punches for the final minute. It looked like the referee would be forced to intervene, but Weidman was saved by the bell. Rockhold smelled blood when he mounted Weidman in round three and looked to repeat more of the same in the fourth. He once again dragged Weidman to the ground and mounted him. This time, there would be no salvation. Rockhold unloaded another salvo, and Herb Dean stepped in to call the fight. It was Weidman’s first professional loss, and it was a doozy.

Rockhold had been saying it all along, and now it was a demonstrated fact: He was the best middleweight on the planet.