José Aldo

José Aldo was given the ball in 2009 by the WEC and ran with it. Aldo competed 4 times, winning all 4 fights by brutal stoppages, highlighted with an acrobatic drubbing of then top 10 FW Cub Swanson in a mere 8 seconds and a destruction of the unquestionably #1 FW in the world Mike Brown in November. He also competed 2 other times, stopping Chris Mickle and Rolando Perez earlier this year. Aldo's unique set of skills (an explosive stand-up game with a great ground game) have the makings of a long-term world champion.

Lyoto Machida

While many will only remember the Shogun fight, Lyoto had an incredible 2009. He started the year by crushing Thiago Silva, saving UFC 94 in the process. His buzzer-beating KO led to his first world title shot, where he took apart Rashad Evans (the #1 LHW). The look on Rashad's face as Lyoto seperated him from his senses is one I'll never forget. He closed his 2009 period with a tremendous fight against Shogun, judging be damned.

B.J. Penn

Penn competed three times in 2009, twice at lightweight and once at welterweight. While he was just given a horrific beating by fellow nominee at Georges St-Pierre, he reciprocated that to his lightweight opponents, Kenny Florian and Diego Sanchez. Penn beat the top 2 challengers to his throne in such dominant fashion that people are now questioning whether someone at 155 will ever be able to beat him.

Georges St-Pierre

While he only competed 2 times in the 2009 period, he had to be nominated for defeating the #1 LW and #2 WW in order. St-Pierre used his enormous advantage in the athleticism department to dominate his opponents, using a blend of speed and power never seen before at WW. With the quality of his opponents and the dominance of his wins, St-Pierre officially took away the title "greatest WW ever" from Matt Hughes in 2009 and doesn't appear to be ready to relinquish it any time soon.

Gegard Mousasi

Mousasi had a very strange year, fighting at HW twice and LHW twice. In his first ever fight at HW, he submitted the totally listless Mark Hunt, and then was unfortunately apart of the Affliction debacle in August. Fortunately for him, Strikeforce picked him up, and his scheduled fight with Babalu (his first ever at 205) went on as planned, where he delivered one of the most brutal beatings of 2009 and stopped the veteran inside of the first round, capturing his 2nd world championship. He closed 2009 with a bit of uninspiring victory over Sokoudjou and a 1st round stoppage of Gary Goodridge at Dynamite.

Shinya Aoki

Aoki, like Penn, started the year suffering a horrific beating at a higher weight than he normally competes at, losing to Hayato Sakurai in less than a minute in the first round of DREAM's WW Grand Prix after a win over the overmatched David Gardner. He recovered from the loss by going on a tear at LW, defeating a sequence of top 10 competitors in Vitor Ribeiro, Joachim Hansen and Mizuto Hirota (the last 2 by incredible submissions).

Had to go with Aldo. Fought the most, all four wins where impressive stopppages, and all wins where against high quatlity opposition. Gets my nod based on consistency

Also want to say I think its a great sign for mma that we have such a strong list of choices.

I see one high quality opponent in there:

-Mike Brown
-Cub Swanson
-Chris Mickle
-Rolando Perez

It's official - the Jose Aldo hype is out of control.

Aldo is a close second behind GSP to me, simply due to Penn being the #1 LW in the world and a consensus Top Five P4P and Alves was a clear-cut #1 contender in the division.

Also, the thread is closed now but Omigawa at least not getting consideration for Comeback is 'tarded.

I went with Lyoto.

Went 3-0 against top-flight competition and regardless of how you saw it, the record books show a win for him in that fight. His fight against Silva was a one-sided beatdown and he handled Rashad like no one else has.

I can't believe he isn't getting more consideration. It's not like he did the judging.

What did Omigawa exactly come back to? Getting a spot in the UFC because it was part of Nakamura's contract? I guess you can look at it that way.

Isn't it obvious why? Despite the judging he clearly lost his last fight in the eyes of most fans which puts him out of the rankings for top fighter of the year. That fight combined with the fact that Machida repeatedly claims he won the fight in Bisping like fashion has turned a lot of people against him.

Like epwar said, I can't see calling all this high qulity opposition. Chris Mickle looked like one of the most uncoordinated people ive ever seen

What about his utter destruction of the #1 FW and top 4 or 5 P4P Mike Brown? It wasn't even competitive.