Ben Duffy/Sherdog.com illustration
Every year, the sport of mixed martial arts gives us a handful of fighters who appear from out of nowhere, breaking through to new competitive heights and fame. Whether it is a well-traveled veteran who manages a shocking mid-career reinvention, such as 2019 winner Jorge Masvidal, or a fighter who shows up at the right place, right time and in the right competitive groove to become a star during one of MMA’s most difficult years, as Kevin Holland did in COVID-stricken 2020, those breakthroughs are a reminder of the wonderful unpredictability of mixed martial arts, a challenge to our assumptions as fans and an inspiration to the next year’s crop of would-be superstars.