MMAjunkie’s 2013 MMA Awards: Travis Browne voted Breakthrough Fighter of the Year

This week MMAjunkie recognizes MMA’s greatest achievements from the past year. We’re honoring fighters in six categories as part of MMAjunkie’s 2013 MMA Awards. MMAjunkie writers and radio hosts provided a list of finalists, and MMAjunkie readers voted for the winners this past week. Today, we announce MMAjunkie’s Breakthrough Fighter of the Year.

Monday, Jan. 6: Comeback Fighter of the Year – Robbie Lawler
Today: Breakthrough Fighter of the Year – Travis Browne
Wednesday, Jan. 8: Submission of the Year – TBA
Thursday, Jan. 9: Knockout of the Year – TBA
Friday, Jan. 10: Fight of the Year – TBA
Saturday. Jan. 11: Fighter of the Year – TBA

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Breakthrough Fighter of the Year

Final voting: Travis Browne (55%), Khabib Nurmagomedov (17%), Conor McGregor (15%), Nick Newell (8%), Emanuel Newton (1%), Alexis Davis (1%), write-in Brandon Thatch (1%), write-in T.J. Grant (1%), write-in Chris Weidman (1%)

It was February of 2013, backstage at the Honda Center in Anaheim, Calif., and Travis Browne was searching for the words to describe what went through his mind as he’d limped around the cage on a blown hamstring four months earlier, watching Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva close in on him with those pot roasts he calls fists looming at the ready.

“It was a very confusing time in my life,” Browne told MMAjunkie then.

He meant it as a joke, though he didn’t laugh.

It seemed unlikely then that Browne would go on to win three fights that year – all of them by first-round knockout, and all of them earning him “Knockout of the Night” bonuses – but that’s what happened.

Against Gabriel Gonzaga, he proved he had takedown defense and the power to make you pay for testing it. Against Alistair Overeem, he proved he could take a beating and still come back with something. Against Josh Barnett, he proved, well, pretty much the same stuff as in the Gonzaga fight, but against a more impressive opponent.

In short, Browne bounced back from a career low (the loss to Silva remains the only one on his record to date) to reach a new high, and he never even had to leave the first round to do it. Now there’s likely only one more fight standing between him and a title shot.

He wins that one, and Browne’s breakthrough year could lead to a life-changing one.

Runner-up: Khabib Nurmagomedov

If you’re a UFC lightweight and you happen to look up one night and see a dude in a big furry hat making his way down the aisle toward you, chances are you’re in for a rough night. That would be Nurmagomedov, all the way from Dagestan, Russian, and if you discovered a way to beat him in the cage, you’d be the first one.

The man affectionately known as “Nurmy” by those of us who have to type his name over and over again is now 21-0 in his pro career, with a 3-0 record in the UFC in 2013. So far he’s yet to meet anyone even capable of slowing him down, much less beating him.

Then again, it’s a long way to the top in the UFC’s 155-pound division, and Nurmagomedov’s climb is far from over.