With 2025 underway, the MMA world is already starting to look ahead to the action that we have to look forward to over the coming 12 months rather than reflecting on the past. 2024 produced some great fights and it’s always fun to look back on them and revisit some of the most exciting moments from throughout the year.
During a recent episode of his podcast, former UFC bantamweight champion Aljamain Sterling did just that by listing what he thinks were the best fights of the previous year. His picks featured some key differences to the consensus picks that you’re sure to see on most peoples lists from 2024.
For a start, the BMF title fight between Max Holloway and Justin Gaethje from UFC 300 is nowhere to be seen in the five fights that Sterling discussed. This fight has accumulated the majority of the fight of the year awards but some would argue that in order for it to rank highly in this category, it needs to be a back-and-forth affair.
Holloway versus Gaethje was definitely the most memorable fight of the year but “Blessed” was fairly dominant before he capped the performance off with one of the all-time great UFC knockouts. Sterling applied this same logic when choosing highly competitive fights that saw both men have success.
“The one that comes to mind is probably Du Plessis and Strickland and I think the next one after that, not in any order, I mean back and forth, you got Gamrot versus Dan Hooker and then you also have Islam Makhachev versus Dustin Poirier.”
Sterling later pointed out a pair of split decision contests that are absolutely deserving of their recognition even if they don’t have the name value of the three previous selections. Esteban Ribovics’ war with Daniel Zellhuber at UFC 306 was undoubtedly the highlight of the promotion’s debut at the Sphere and though UFC 308 was littered with stand out moments, the battle between Mateusz Rębecki and Myktybek Orolbai is the one that “Funkmaster” thinks should take the top spot.
“So I don’t know, I think between all of those, they were all pretty good but the Orolbai one to me, because he was able to, his eye looked like it was swollen shut and they were going to stop the fight. They let him continue even though his eye was a balloon and from there, came back and looked like he was about to get Rębecki out of there… great, great fight and I think it showed a lot of heart, a lot of grit and just like the sheer will to win.”
