OK, OK, I know it’s not over yet and there’s more to come, but wow! What a great year for UKMMA this has been:

There are more Brits than ever before signed up to the big shows and people are starting to sit up and take notice that the Brits are for real and we have some QUALITY fighters.

We have seen the UK team make it all the way to the semi-finals in the M1 Global Challenge. No mean feat when you consider that they did this with very little faith being placed in the team by a large number of “so-called” UK fans on the forums. They had to cope with team changes, injuries, and the logistical nightmare of getting guys – who in some cases still hold down full-time jobs – together from all over the country to train as a squad. All the fighters who gave their all, the coaches and UKMMA kingpin Ian Dean all deserve BIG respect for what they achieved. Onwards and upwards! Let’s hope we can improve on the semi-finals next time out.

There was the first all UK Team in the house for the Ultimate Fighter reality series. They proved to be more dedicated, less whiney and ultimately (and most importantly) superior Mixed Martial Artists to the US team in the house, with the series winners in both weight categories coming from our side. Spare a thought as well for the UK talent that didn’t make it to the show. Che Mills and Jimmy Wallhead particularly stick in the mind and were conspicuous by their absence (more on them later in this article).

Team Roughouse have emerged as a contender to rival AKA’s position as “the” team in the UFC’s welterweight division. Roughhouse standouts Dan “The Outlaw” Hardy and Paul “Semtex” Daley have arrived with a bang: Semtex KO-ing one of the previous contenders for that elusive title shot in Martin Kampmann with some fierce striking in the first round of his UFC debut. Dan Hardy – riding the momentum of blasting through his last few opponents in the Octagon – despatched the other former contender for the shot, Mike Swick, with an excellent decision win and in the process becoming the first british fighter to get a UFC title shot.

A shout-out must go to Brad Pickett who became the first Brit to make it into the (zuffa owned) *thanks MMAlien* WEC and he is sure to make big waves there. This will hopefully pave the way for the other outstanding UK fighters who compete at the lighter weights to make it on the big shows. I fully expect Mark Adams (ok thats a shameless plug for a mate, but tell me I’m wrong!! ) and hopefully one of my favourite UK-based fighters: Paul McVeigh to follow him there sometime in 2010 / 2011 as well as some other promising UK talent.

Although he isn’t British, we can adopt him as one of our own and no-one can deny the British influence provided by his team on Marius Zaromskis, who has been kicking peoples heads off their shoulders in Dream to win the Welterweight grand-prix title. The london-shoot trained Lithuanian striking machine will now try his hand in strikeforce before the UFC no doubt come knocking to add him to their already stacked welterweight rosta.

Domestically we have seen some awesome matchups. Jim Wallhead has cleaned out the UK and european WW’s and needs big international fights, Marshall Zelasnik has previously stated he has his eye on Jimmy and after taking a decision win against Che Mills recently, ‘Judo Jim’ has surely done enough to make Joe Silva and Dana White sit up and take notice and add him to the growing list of Team RoughHouse WW fighters currently on a march in the UFC.

Paul Sass dispatched Rob Sinclair to stake a claim as the best UK lightweight out there right now and surely some bigger european and UK fights beckon for him.

Cage Rage successor Ultimate Challenge have raised their game and recently put on one of their best cards since the glory days of Cage Rage. Jackson MMA trained Tom Watson proved he is the number one UK Middleweight outside the UFC by beating a game Denniston Sutherland and again some bigger matchups will surely come for him. There are plenty of other shows are cropping up and putting on some quality domestic and european match-ups and UK Fans are spoiled for choice with events to go to. Which is a nice change from only a few years ago when there weren’t too many shows at all.

Sadly every silver-lining has a cloud and it has been a shame to see the demise of CageWarriors as a fight promotion. This is the show I “grew up” with in MMA and the first show I ever went to. Hopefully they will be back bigger and better sometime soon but meanwhile they continue to try to drive UKMMA forwards with their Warrior Promotions brand and the tireless work of Ian Dean and the team on behalf of UK fighters.

But the biggest exclamation mark to emphasise the fact that UKMMA is up there with the best in the world is undoubtedly the most recent UFC event, UFC 105, held in Manchester.

What a night for the British Fighters and what a brilliant two-finger gesture to all the haters on t’interweb the world over who said that most if not all the Brits would get killed on that show. I especially love the fact that after saying this on record, Matt Riddle got his face punched in by Nick Osipczak. Awesome!

Ross Pearson proved he really is “The Real Deal” with his destruction of veteran Aaron Riley, who had no answer for the intensity of Pearsons muay thai assault. He looked a real contender that night and proved that he has what it takes to hang with the big boys of the UFC’s lightweight division.

Mike Bisping laid a few demons to rest with his GnP obliteration of a hapless Denis Kang – a BJJ BlackBelt who could not figure out Bispings guard, had no answer to his takedowns and folded under his relentless ground assault in round 2.

Dan Hardy is now the first UK fighter to get a title shot in the UFC (I know I’ve said this once already, but its HUGE so I’ll say it twice!) after outstriking Mike Swick – a feat which many doubters said was impossible but UK fans knew all along. Hardy did eat a few shots but shook them off and rocked Swick with his power several times. I personally felt he should have KO’d swick by going after him when he was shaken but he had a clear gameplan and it paid off. That’s why I’m just an armchair fan and he’s in the cage beating people up.

In the only Brit vs Brit fight of the night, John Hathaway kept his undefeated record intact and proved in the process that he is one of the best wrestlers in UKMMA….who said Brits can’t wrestle!!

Despite their losses on the show Paul Kelly and James Wilks gave a good account of themselves in tough fights against Denis Siver and Matt Brown respectively.

Terry Etim got his second sub of the night bonus in as many fights with his 2nd round Guillotine win and Andre Winner had a good shout for KO of the night with a vicious overhand right that put Roli Delgado out before he even hit the floor. Sure he followed up with a couple of unnecessary shots but the ref was too far from the action to pull him off and in fairness to Dre, Delgado got up from the first one so he had to be sure.

Speaking of Refs – we also had the best UK ref in the game (and one of the best in the UFC right now) Marc Goddard refereeing a UFC main event. A huge honour for him and proof that it isnt just the fighters from the UK who are excelling in the sport right now.

So how do we top this year? Well Dan Hardy winning the Welterweight strap would be a great way to do that – but that is a pretty tall order as I’m sure he is only too well aware. I’m not writing off his chances and he is the rightful challenger – if he can keep it standing who knows what could happen. No-one has truly tested GSP’s chin out, apart from Matt Serra and we all know what happened there. It is fair to say that Dan Hardy is a LOT better on the feet than Serra so this match is certainly not a complete whitewash for GSP, especially when you consider his absence through injury recently and how active Dan has been.

No doubt Dan is spending everyday in the gym concentrating on getting that belt and he knows what he has to do to win. The whole of the UK is behind him.

Starting off 2010 strongly is the EPIC ZT Fight Night – the Tournament. A one night, 8 man, winner takes all, old school tournament for the right to be crowned the no1 UK Heavyweight and take a tidy £15k home in the process. That one will start the year off with a bang for sure.

Finally (and look out for a future article on this) UKMMA legend Ian Freeman has stated his desire to return to the cage and this looks likely for 2010. Will we see him back in the bigshow? I certainly hope so and if the UFC have any sense they’d put any fight he was in on a UK UFC – it would be even bigger than UFC 105 (which incidentally broke all european records for an MMA show).

Many people are saying he should leave his legacy as it is instead of chasing an elusive dream, I say why the hell should he. No-one knows Freeman better than Freeman and he has definitely had his share of comebacks. I don’t think he can hang with the LHW elite in the UFC and to be fair I don’t think he thinks he can judging by this (thanks Aaron and MMA Hitpit), but there are a few great potential matches out there for him, let’s hope they get made and we get a chance to see the Machine ripping it up in the cage once more.

The message to MMA fans over here is simple: The futures bright people, and the future is UKMMA!!