Kamaru Usman, Julianna Peña highlight MMA’s year — The top fighters, fight, finish and moments of 2021

Every year in every sport brings ups and downs, memorable performances, the emergence of new stars. In mixed martial arts, the leading fight promotion, the UFC, has eight weight classes for men and four for women and ran 43 fight cards in 2021, making plenty of room available onstage for athletes to show their stuff. Add in full slates of cards in Bellator and other promotions, and it was indeed an eventful year for MMA.

Who stood out among the year’s many greats? What matchups and performances were most eye-opening? There were a lot of possibilities to consider, and ESPN’s Brett Okamoto, Marc Raimondi and Jeff Wagenheim looked back over the year and came up with the best of the best. They each also cited their most memorable moments of the year.

Fighter of the Year (men): Kamaru Usman

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Chael Sonnen believes if Kamaru Usman takes down Colby Covington next, he may be on his way to reaching the level of Georges St-Pierre in the MMA world.

It was a career-defining year for the UFC’s welterweight champion, one that moved him either ahead of Georges St-Pierre as the greatest 170-pounder of all time or at least on the very cusp of it. The most impressive thing about Usman is not simply his dominance but the improvement he’s showing nearly a decade into his pro MMA career.

Also impressive, for sure, was his activity. It’s become something of a rarity for a UFC champion to fight three times in a calendar year, and Usman had three fights in 2021 in a span of nine months. He defended his title against Gilbert Burns and Colby Covington, who were unquestionably the division’s top contenders this year, and he absolutely buried any doubt about his dominance with a knockout of Jorge Masvidal, whom he had beaten in 2020 but in unspectacular fashion.

Usman did enough to make himself a…