5 Best MMA Fighters of 2018

#3 Henry Cejudo (13-2)/ Valentina Shevchenko (16-3)

Joanna Jedrzejczyk's Achilles' Heel.

2018 was the year when two Perennial title contenders -- Henry Cejudo and Valentina Shevchenko upped their game and finally won the big one in their respective divisions.

Let's first look back to Shevchenko's year. After an unsuccessful attempt at capturing the Women's Bantamweight title from Amanda Nunes, Bullet made a sensible decision by going down to the Flyweight division. She began the year with an impressive rear-naked choke finish over Priscila Cachoeira in February and ended the year by getting hold of the vacant flyweight strap by defeating the once unconquerable Joanna Jędrzejczyk.

Shevchenko surely has Jędrzejczyk's number as she has beaten the former UFC Women's Strawweight Champion four times (3 amateur Muay Thai bouts and 1 MMA fight). Shevchenko still has a long way to go but it's undeniable that she was one of the biggest winners of 2018.

An Olympic Gold Medallist UFC Champion.

Coming to the other success story of the year, Henry Cejudo just fought once in 2018 but the result and subsequent implications of the said fight were colossal.

The former Olympic gold medalist not only ended Demetrious Johnson's 11-fight title win streak with a controversial split decision win at UFC 227 but also gained retribution for his earlier loss in 2016 against Mighty Mouse. The loss was Johnson's final bout in the UFC as he left for ONE FC, possibly marking the end of the UFC Flyweight division.

Cejudo will take on Bantamweight Champion TJ Dillashaw in a Flyweight title fight at ESPN +/ Fight Night 143 on January 19th, 2019.