Wayne "Fu" Smallwood vs Weeg Hewson - Underdog of the Year

Alaskan MMA doesn't get much national media coverage because not many reporters are willing to venture into a frozen desert to cover amateur events garnering crowds of up to 50 people, but when one of them features a 62 year old man with a George Carlin ponytail and some GSP training shorts fighting someone less than half his age and 22 pounds heavier, that's at least YouTube worthy. Smallwood spends his days crafting walking sticks and probably practicing kung fu. I'm not really sure what Weeg Hewson does. If you do a Google search for Wayne Smallwood, you find a number of articles detailing how he beat the snot out of Weeg Hewson, but if you do a Google search for Weeg Hewson, you also find a number of articles about how Wayne Smallwood beat the snot out of Weeg Hewson. Because he lost, Weeg Hewson will always be known for exactly one thing. Hewson spent a very sweaty minute attempting to drag the older, smaller, lighter man to the mat, but Smallwood managed to mostly retain his footing. Hewson tugged and tugged at Smallwood as though he were trying to squeeze into Smallwood's shorts, but "Fu" somehow defended with a couple of punches. Now, one of the first tendencies a body has when it begins to get tired is to drop the arms to conserve energy. This is also the last thing a body should do when in a fight, and you learn to resist this impulse through training. When Hewson's lungs decided to shut his body down like a fleshy Twinkies factory, the rest of him was too tired and maybe drunk to protest. As he stood hands to knees heaving in mouths full of oxygen, Smallwood found the time to stagger across the ring and delivered a spinning elbow to his winded opponent. The move couldn't have been more telegraphed if Smallwood shouted its name in Morse code. Because standing is a lot harder than being hammered, Hewson fell to the ground and the ref jumped in to protect him from further damage.

Barboza vs Etim - Holy Shit! of the Year

Edson Barboza is a fighter in the lightweight division that also doubles as a clean, alternative energy source for 12% of Brazil's citizens. Footage of his cardio routine can cause your DVD player to lose up to two pounds and gives your Jean-Claude Van Damme movies twice as many kicks. He throws the kind of feet that can turn the human skeleton to chipotle, and he won his debut fight against Mike Lullo by kicking him approximately infinity + infinity's cousin times in the knee. At UFC 152, he faced Terry Etim, an off and on again submission artist that has floated around the lightweight undercard for a few years. Barboza spent the better part of two rounds hammering Etim's liver and legs like Everclear shots. Around two minutes into the final round, Etim went stiffer than a gargoyle's morning wood after eating the nastiest spinning wheel kick delivered outside of a comic book. Barboza kicked in Etim's mouth like it was a door in an episode of Cops and he expected to find cocaine and hookers inside. After the fight, Etim was legally allowed to join support groups for sand castles. Outside of the ring, a skeletal ferryman began anxiously jingling his coin purse. After the fight, Joe Rogan asked Barboza how it felt to partially decapitate another human being in such a spectacular fashion. He thanked Jesus in Portuguese.

Tim Boetsch vs Yushin Okami - Comeback of the Year

Tim "The Barbarian" Boetsch made his first official appearance in issue number 63 of Dragon magazine and has been besting worthy adventurers in arena combat ever since. Yushin Okami is pretty much what would happen if the Japanese tried to build a Matt Hughes out of an irradiated daiku radish. The two fought on Okami's home turf at UFC 144. Okami dominated the first two rounds. He used in and out combinations to win the first and his wrestling skill to win the second. In the process, he managed to tear open Boetsch's face like it was Christmas and he knew there was a Super Nintendo inside. Boetsch was bewildered by the movement. It was as though Okami's hands were explaining particle physics to Boetsch every time Okami swung.

Down two rounds, Boetsch could only win the fight by knockout or submission. Boetsch ate an early jab but quickly began landing powerful hooks. Okami was bewildered by the brute force. It was as though Boetsch's fists were explaining how to hunt and kill a T-rex every time he swung. Okami backed away in terror while Boetsch pursued throwing haymakers and headkicks. When he finally caught Okami against the cage, he performed a move too crazy to be taught in any gym. He pinned Okami's head against the cage with one arm and began throwing uppercuts with his back half turned to his opponent. They weren't soft either. They had enough power behind them to turn the arena cockroaches into worthy opponents for Godzilla. Okami managed to briefly escape his tormentor, but Boetsch noticed that the steak beginning to swell under Okami's eye was almost bloody enough to be done and went back in with the exact same move. This time, Okami fell to the ground and ate several more punches from the fetal position, thus ending the most savage act of brutality since Honey Boo Boo's conception.

Cain Velasquez vs Antonio Silva - Bloodbath of the Year

The 2012 award for the most brain fluid spilled on the Octagon floor goes to Cain Velazquez for that time he painted a Jackson Pollock painting using Antonio Silva's blood and most cherished memories. The bloodbath was so severe, the janitor's mop immediately quit to pursue its lifelong dream of being Jonathon Brookins's hair. It didn't take long for the never ending takedown machine that is Cain Velazquez to pull Silva's legs from beneath him. Silva went full Ettish for a moment as Velazquez found new and creative ways to turn Silva's giant noggin into a kiddy pool for vampires. The crowd shrieked for more, and when the fuck are the lions supposed to show up anyway?

Bus Driver vs Ratchet Girl - Knockout of the Year

If you ever watched a fight and thought it would be a thousand times better on a speeding bus in city traffic featuring the driver as one of the participants, then thanks for dropping by to read my column, Keanu, but Cleveland public transportation beat us to it. In October a cellphone video was recorded featuring an argument between a 25 year old female and a nearly retired bus driver. We don't know exactly what started the argument, but we can assume based on the context that the disagreement partially centered around a heated debate over the number of fucks that neither party gave. The female repeatedly called the old man a nigga, and though she used the soft 'a' as is formal custom when engaged in fine dining with folks of color, you could feel the hard 'r' dripping hatefully from the end as though it were coming from the plantation owner when he found those black people eating at his dinner table. Her side of the argument was that she would beat his ass, his bitch's ass, and his granddaughters' asses. The bus driver countered that her face looked all sliced up. Both seem like valid points, but genetics seemed to side with the bus driver. Turning your vehicle into a flaming death trap may be how terrorists and Tyler Durden carpool, but otherwise it's a fairly impractical means of travel. When allegations of a sliced up face emerged, the enraged female either punched or scratched the face of the bus driver. It's hard to see because all of the people who should be preventing her from doing exactly this are cheering on the end times like Jesus is going to come back as the special guest referee. The next few seconds are why camera phones were invented, as illustrated below.

If you ask most men in America if it is ever acceptable to hit a woman, most of them will tell you no, and some will even volunteer to beat the ass of anyone who does. Either none of these men were riding the bus that day or they sincerely reconsidered their stance on gender equality, because nobody thought to interfere when he grabbed her punch drunk body and threw it like a lawn dart at the nearest curb.