Lyoto Machida: Fighter of the Half Year

The year is half over, and we're recognizing the best in MMA in the first six months of 2009. Up first is our Fighter of the Half Year, Lyoto Machida.

Heading into 2009, there were still a lot of MMA fans who ripped Machida as the kind of fighter who would rather avoid a fight than engage in one. Not many people are saying that after a half year in which Machida knocked out two previously undefeated fighters, Thiago Silva and Rashad Evans.

The win over Silva at UFC 94 gave us a good look at Machida's punching power, and the brutal knockout of Evans showed that Machida has the kind of killer instinct that great fighters need. Machida, so far, has been the best fighter of 2009.

Here are some of the runners-up for Fighter of the Half Year:

Mike Brown: The World Extreme Cagefighting featherweight champ is 2-0 in 2009, with a first-round destruction of Leonard Garcia in March and an epic five-round war with Urijah Faber in June.

Eddie Alvarez: Bouncing back from a New Year's Eve loss to Shinya Aoki, Alvarez finished all three of his opponents on his way to winning Bellator's lightweight tournament.

Jose Aldo: Aldo has gone 3-0 this year in the WEC, and his three fights have taken a total of less than six minutes. Up next, most likely, is a fight with Brown.

Joe Warren: The former Greco-Roman wrestling world champion had never had a professional MMA fight before this year. Now he's 2-0 and has a win over one of the legends in the sport, Kid Yamamoto.

Nick Diaz: It's not easy to move up in weight, but Diaz has made it look easy, whipping both Frank Shamrock and Scott Smith at 180-pound catch weights.

Diego Sanchez: Sanchez has moved down to lightweight and won two of the more entertaining fights of 2009, beating Joe Stevenson at UFC 95 and Clay Guida at the Ultimate Fighter Finale. Up next for Sanchez, most likely, will be a shot at the UFC lightweight championship, against either BJ Penn or Kenny Florian.

Shogun Rua: Yes, it's true that his two wins this year, against Mark Coleman and Chuck Liddell, have both come against fighters who are past their primes. But I think Shogun looked at times against Liddell like he's rounding back into the form we saw in Pride, and I'm excited to see what he does in his third fight this year, against Machida at UFC 104