The votes have been tallied and the results are in! Welcome to the 2nd Annual FiveKnuckles MMA Awards show. My name is Mike Williams and I'll be your host, only due to the unavailability of Erik Estrada and Vanilla Ice. I was chosen in favor of Jose Canseco and Kermit the Frog, which has brought about a mild boost to my self-esteem.

2010 was a fabulous year for mixed martial arts. Fans watched on as huge underdogs prevailed, spectacular finishes occurred, and in some cases, legends fell. As expected, most of the voting came down to the wire with extremely tight results. The beauty of the FiveKnuckles Awards is that we're sure we got it right because you, the fans, did the voting. Without further ado, let's draw the curtain and get the show started.

Breakout Fighter of the Year

This award was created by the FiveKnuckles staff in 2009 to honor the fighter that created a name for himself within the sport during the calendar year. The breakout fighter went from relative anonymity to a household name through his efforts and achievements inside the cage. This year's nominees are;

George Sotiropoulos
Jon Jones
Phil Davis
Cain Velasquez

The envelope please....

....ladies and gentlemen we have a TIE! Please give a big round of applause for George Sotiropoulos AND Phil Davis!

Prior to 2010, Sotiropoulos' most notable fight was probably a disqualification loss to Shinya Aoki in 2006. After signing with the UFC in '07 he racked up wins against other up and comers until this year he was thrown into the mix against the likes of Joe Stevenson, Kurt Pellegrino, and Joe Lauzon and emerged victorious in all three of those fights. At this point he's probably just a fight or two from a title shot and poised for a fabulous career.

Davis made his UFC debut in February after just four professional fights in smaller promotions. He's now 4-0 in the UFC with two slick submissions and all impressive wins. Davis has his work cut out for him in the 205lb. division but all indications are the he's ready for the challenge.

Congratulations to both of these fighters on being the 2010 Breakout Fighters of the Year.

Submission of the Year

There's a variety of ways to define a great submission. It can be something kind of rare and unique that gets the attention of the world. It could be the method in which it's applied, the risk that's taken in the process, the circumstances surrounding the fight, or sometimes even the caliber of the fighter that's forced to tap. No matter how it's applied, a submission win is particularly gratifying for the simple fact that a professional fighter, literally one of the toughest guys in the world, has been forced to quit.

The nominees are:

Phil Davis' kimura over Tim Boetsch.
Matt Hughes' anaconda choke over Ricardo Almeida.
Chris Lytle's armbar over Matt Brown.
Fabricio Werdum's triangle/armbar over Fedor Emelianenko.

And the winner is....

...Fabricio Werdum!

Werdum actually won this by a landslide and deservedly so. He came into the fight vs. Fedor as such a huge underdog that many people thought it was silly for Strikeforce to even promote the fight. Entering the fight, Werdum was 13-4 as a pro and Fedor had been the most dominant mixed martial artist in the history of the sport, victorious in 28 consecutive...