2022 Heavies Awards KO of the Year Winner: Leon Edwards

[mjfan23]

Edwards due the the stakes but the Chandler KO was picture perfect

 

[Substance Abuse]

Leon/Usman when you consider the upset factor and the moment it took place. The whole room where I was at went ape shit. An all time upset as well as an all time knockout? It rarely gets better.

 

[Kowboy On Sherdog]

Edwards... so epic it killed all the "Usman is GOAT" daily threads with one kick.

 

[TheMMAnalyst]

"Look at me now!"

 

[Midget Boxer]

Leon made Usman lean into a kick

All skill no luck

 

[BoxerMaurits]

Knockouts. We know them. We love them. Kaboom! Here's the nominees for the 2022 Heavies Awards Knockout of the Year. Where you decide the winner. Kindly tell us which KO you voted for and why. Dramatic descriptions are welcome. Feel free to mention other great KO's in the past year. The poll closes in five days.​

1. May 7, 2022 Michael Chandler defeats Tony Ferguson R2 0:17 KO (Front Kick) at UFC 274. Michael Chandler ended this with a front kick to the face. Straight up Tony’s chin causing the sweat to fly and Ferg went straight down. Tony was doing pretty good in the fight until he wasn’t.

2. June 11, 2022 Weili Zhang defeated Joanna Jedrzejczyk R2 2:28 KO (Spinning Backfist) at UFC 275. In the rematch from their first fight which won fight of the year Weili dominated. Going aggressive Joanna slightly overreached and was met with a spinning back fist from Weili Zhang. Joanna fell face first to the ground, and retired an all-time great. Weili went on to to get the title belt by submitting Carla Esparza.

3. August 20, 2022 Leon Edwards defeated Kamaru Usman R5 4:04 KO (Kick to the head) at UFC 278. The stakes don't get higher. A title fight. Current champ Kamaru Usman was on an incredible run of successive victories. In this rematch Leon had some early success. But by the end of Round 4 it looked like Usman would retain the belt. Edwards needed a stoppage. His corner gave Rocky inspiration. With under a minute remaining in the final round Edwards pulled a fake left that Usman looked to defend. Then launched a devastating left kick to the head. Down goes Usman! The crowd went nuts. Edwards captured the belt. He followed it up with an awesome post-victory speech. "I came from nothing. Look at me now!"

4. December 17, 2022 Alex Caceres defeats Julian Erosa R1 3:04 TKO (Head Kick and Punches) at UFC Fight Night 216. Alex 'Bruce Leeroy' Cacares always brings the kung fu spirit of respectful warrior and exciting entertainer. Here he gets the ‘Hee ya! Chop chop!’ beautiful in its timing and balance. A swing and a miss followed by an extended left leg kick to the face that dropped Julian ‘The Eraser’ Erosa and gave Caceres fans another career highlight.

Thanks to @KazDibiase and @Ladder Master for the gifs and to @giovanni_ss, @Jackonfire, @HockeyBjj and other mods & staff for assistance. Check out other awards and exclusive content at sherdog.com.

Thanks to everyone for reading and participating. Have a safe and joyful new year.

Chandler KO’ing Ferguson came out of nowhere… the same goes with Edwards vs Usman, but stakes aside Chandler’s KO shocked me more.
Also, we were looking at a near dead body in Tony Ferguson, holy shit

 

[modulus]

Depends -

Pure knockout; Chandler - that crazy-ass front kick traveled so far it had to cross state lines and then have it's passport checked before going straight up the middle and just completely wrecking Tony.

Drama, high stakes; Edwards - absolutely losing a Championship fight, a last round ,last minute Hail Mary finding its mark, definitely a Rocky moment.

 

[SenorFranko]

Loving the thread @PurpleStorm

I'm going with Leon. That Chandler KO is mental though.

 

[Wormwood]

Leon for all the reasons already mentioned… set-up, context, drama, Usman being p4p, post fight speech, etc…


…and as @giovanni_ss mentioned how the Chandler KO gave all the awesome shoopers here priceless material, the Leon KO did the same…

https://forums.sherdog.com/threads/shoop-dat-murdered-marty.4252193/

 

[Grill master]

Leon deserves the Doggie award. He gets my vote.

 

[sdpdude9]

Chandler’s was probably the most aesthetic and brutal. But you can’t beat the context of Leon’s which was also a beautiful KO in its own right, so that gets my vote.

 

[drbolony]

Have to go with Leon, I'm a sucker for stories. That fight, the build up, and the aftermath would make a great feel good sports movie.

 

[Karl_Hungus]

I had to vote Leon because it was such a clutch move when he was down on the cards. Sick stuff.

 

[Jackonfire]

I went with Leon. It was such an incredible moment.

 

[Arqueto]

Had to go with Leon as it was such a WTF? moment and it gave us the best shoop thread of the year outside of Mike's tribute thread.

 

[Raptors2019]

There's only one answer here and I don't even have to say what it is.

I know right, it's Weili!

 

[HuskySamoan]

I don't really care for Chandler vs Tony, Tony's defense has always been bad and he was 37 years old on a 4 fight losing streak going in there vs an explosive powerful striker. I just cannot see how that would get the vote, it was sad matchmaking.

Leon's knockout was pretty nuts and the way he set it up with feints was really slick. This just felt like the obvious choice to me. Topuria vs Jai Herbert was pretty insane to me too. There's probably quite a few others but I'd have to actually comb through the cards to jog my memory. Leon's moment was just monumental.

 

[StonedLemur]

Chandler KO’ing Ferguson came out of nowhere… the same goes with Edwards vs Usman, but stakes aside Chandler’s KO shocked me more.
Also, we were looking at a near dead body in Tony Ferguson, holy shit

I had a hard time picking tbh, and I even changed my pick once.
I had to go with Leon, even though like you said...Tony died as soon as he was touched.

 

[BoxerMaurits]

I had a hard time picking tbh, and I even changed my pick once.
I had to go with Leon, even though like you said...Tony died as soon as he was touched.

Scary moment

 

[HatKick]

Those are all wonderful but it can only be Leon.

Shoutout to Topuria and Dober.