UFC light heavyweight champion Alex ‘Poatan’ Pereira tops almost everyone’s list of the Fighter of the Year for 2024 and Dan Hooker is no different. It’s pretty much undebatable since Pereira defended his title thrice in 2024, twice on short notice. The only other fighter that could ever challenge those credentials was featherweight champion Ilia Topuria, who KO’d two legends in Alexander Volkanovski and Max Holloway. However, Hooker remains unimpressed.
He believes Pereira’s decision to step in and save UFC 300 – and his willingness to put everything on the line – makes him the clear choice over Topuria, a rising star who perhaps was a bit too cautious. Speaking to Mainevent on YouTube, Hooker said,
“I’d say Pereira, can’t really go past Alex Pereira just for stepping up on short notice and activity…Alex compared with Ilia, I feel Ilia played it a lot safer than Alex.”
Saying Topuria played it ‘safe’ this year as he stood next to Volkanovski was certainly diabolical work from the Kiwi. But there is some truth to it.
Both Volk and Holloway are a little past their prime. Make no mistake, they are still formidable fighters and legends in their own right. But Volk was coming off a head-kick KO loss to Islam Makhachev just months before he fought Topuria. Holloway, on the other hand, looked like the brutal weight cut to get to featherweight had finally got to him.
As a matter of fact, in the aftermath of his loss, he even announced that he was done with the division and would stick to lightweight for the remainder of his career.
Pereira, on the other hand, knocked out former world champions like Jiri Prochazka and Jamahal Hill, and then won a four-round war with Khalil Rountree, winning all three fights by KO/TKOs.
Poatan’s performances have also been highly praised by many pundits. Some like Joe Rogan even believe despite only having fought a few times in his MMA career, he was lining up to be one of the greatest of all time. So, of course, he has every right to be the fighter of the year!
However, former UFC champion, Daniel Cormier disagrees with this assessment.
DC picks Topuria for FOTY
While Pereira had an explosive year with three knockouts at light heavyweight, Cormier argues Topuria’s wins against two featherweight legends outweigh his accomplishments.
“(Topuria) just beat the two best fighters of the generation prior, but they’re still in this generation, because they’re both very, very young. He just beat two of the greatest featherweights of all time.”
There’s a lot of truth to this argument as well.
Pereira, despite entertaining the fans with his striking, failed to fight the #1 contender in the division, Magomed Ankalaev. Ankalaev, with his powerful striking and vicious ground game, has been touted as the fighter who would bring an end to Poatan’s reign.
And yet, Pereira has never stood up to the challenge. As a matter of fact, his choice of opponents was rather one-dimensional. Prochazka, Hill, and Rountree were all strikers he had a distinct power advantage over.
Topuria, on the other hand, despite fighting veterans of the sport, put on MMA masterclasses. From the get-go, he proved that his claims of being the best boxer in the UFC weren’t unjustified. The way he moved and used spaces to land precise punches had everyone looking in awe. And when that didn’t do the job, he used his equally impressive grappling to gain a foothold in the fights.
More importantly, in defeating Volk and Holloway, he announced himself as the very first of the next generation of superstars in the UFC.
There are compelling arguments for both fighters to win the FOTY award this year. In light of these circumstances, perhaps the burden falls on individual opinions. Afterall, the perception of fights and fighters has always been extremely subjective.
