The vote for the sixth annual Groundandpound Awards is over. Once again we are glad to have improved readership participation from previous years, registering a total of 59,957 votes from 39 different countries on all five continents.

American Kickboxing Academy’s Cain Velasquez convinced 35% of our readers with his performances to vote for him as “Fighter of the Year”. The 28-year-old Mexican-American, who will unfortunately miss most of 2011 with a severe shoulder injury, knocked out former PRIDE superstar (Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira) and previous title-holder Brock Lesnar en route to the UFC heavyweight championship. Fellow UFC champions Georges St. Pierre (30%) and Jose Aldo (18%) came in second and third respectively.

Velasquez’s heroics were also the cornerstone that propelled his team American Kickboxing Academy to “Fight Team of the Year” honors. The San Jose based gym also had the likes of Jon Fitch, Josh Koscheck and Josh Thomson in marquee bouts this year. AKA is also one of the few gyms to have fighters in the UFC, Strikeforce and DREAM. The vote had been a close three horse race between AKA, Jackson’s MMA and American Top Team.

Speaking of the premier promotions, the UFC has won “Best Promotion” for the fourth year in a row. The Zuffa flagship also managed to stop a marginal slide in popularity. The organization had its all-time high in 2007 with 66.8% of all votes, which decreased to 64.9% in 2008 and 60.8% in 2009. This time they clocked in at 62.0%. Interestingly, it’s sister organization WEC, came in second with 22.1%. Japanese organizations DREAM, Sengoku and Shooto only received 5.6% of the votes combined.

The biggest of all margins was to be found in the “Kickboxer of the Year” category. Dutch behemoth Alistair Overeem dwarfed the competition, amassing a whopping 80.2% of all votes. K-1 MAX champion Giorgio Petrosyan came in a distant second at 8.6%.

The closest race took place between two fighters who could not be much more different: Chael Sonnen and Jason “Mayhem” Miller went neck and neck in their quest to become the “Cult Fighter of the Year” which recognizes the most entertaining/notorious personality in the fight game. In the end, professional realtor Chael Sonnen took home the award on the back of his fantastic performances hyping up his title fight against Anderson Silva. Sonnen edged Miller by 2.8%.

Complete results:

FIGHTER OF THE YEAR

* 1. Cain Velasquez (Mexico) 34.9%
* 2. Georges St. Pierre (Canada) 29.5%
* 3. Jose Aldo (Brazil) 17.5%
* 4. Frankie Edgar (USA) 9.7%
* 5. Anderson Silva (Brazil) 6.4%
* 6. Hatsu Hioki (Japan) 2.0%

FEMALE FIGHTER OF THE YEAR

* 1. Zoila Frausto (USA) 70.6%
* 2. Cristiane Cyborg (Brazil) 10.8%
* 3. Megumi Fujii (Japan) 9.8%
* 4. Miesha Tate (USA) 5.4%
* 5. Shayna Baszler (USA) 2.1%
* 6. Hiroko Yamanaka (Japan) 1.3%

FIGHT TEAM OF THE YEAR

* 1. American Kickboxing Academy (USA) 28.9%
* 2. Jackson’s MMA (USA) 27.5%
* 3. American Top Team (USA) 22.4%
* 4. Team Nogueira (Brazil) 11.7%
* 5. Nova União (Brazil) 8.1%
* 6. Wajutsu Keishukai (Japan) 1.4%

ROOKIE OF THE YEAR

* 1. Phil Davis (USA) 77.2%
* 2. Maciej Jewtuszko (Poland) 13.5%
* 3. Charles Oliveira (Brazil) 3.4%
* 4. Rory MacDonald (Canada) 2.4%
* 5. Yasubey Enomoto (Switzerland) 2.3%
* 6. Tie Quan Zhang (China) 1.2%

MOST IMPROVED FIGHTER

* 1. Maximo Blanco (Venezuela) 79.1%
* 2. Alistair Overeem (Netherlands) 9,0%
* 3. Chris Leben (USA) 6.3%
* 4. Rafael Feijão (Brazil) 2.7%
* 5. Hiroyuki Takaya (Japan) 1.6%
* 6. Mark Hominick (Canada) 1.3%

BEST YOUNG FIGHTER

* 1. Jon Jones (USA) 68.9%
* 2. Pascal Krauss (Germany) 9.2%
* 3. Alexander Gustafsson (Sweden) 7.9%
* 4. Joe Soto (Mexico) 5.1%
* 5. Josh Grispi (USA) 5.0%
* 6. John Hathaway (England) 3.9%

CULT FIGHTER OF THE YEAR

* 1. Chael Sonnen (USA) 33.7%
* 2. Jason Miller (USA) 30.9%
* 3. Dan Hardy (England) 17.4%
* 4. Evangelista Cyborg (Brazil) 9.7%
* 5. Yuichiro Nagashima (Japan) 4.2%
* 6. Tom Lawlor (USA) 4.1%

KICKBOXER OF THE YEAR

* 1. Alistair Overeem (Netherlands) 80.2%
* 2. Giorgio Petrosyan (Armenia) 8.6%
* 3. Buakaw Por. Pramuk (Thailand) 6.8%
* 4. Yodsanklai Fairtex (Thailand) 2.6%
* 5. Artem Levin (Russia) 1.0%
* 6. Nathan Corbett (Australia) 0.8%

GRAPPLER OF THE YEAR

* 1. Bernardo Faria (Brazil) 32.9%
* 2. Rodrigo Cavaca (Brazil) 24.3%
* 3. Caio Terra (Brazil) 11.4%
* 4. Rafael Lovato Jr. (USA) 11.2%
* 5. Lucas Lepri (Brazil) 10.8%
* 6. Bruno Malfacine (Brazil) 9.4%

FIGHT OF THE YEAR

* 1. Jorge Santiago vs. Kazuo Misaki 40.3%
* 2. Anderson Silva vs. Chael Sonnen 29.0%
* 3. Anthony Pettis vs. Benson Henderson 17.8%
* 4. Nick Diaz vs. KJ Noons 9.2%
* 5. Alex Reid vs. Tom Watson 2.0%
* 6. Takeshi Inoue vs. Hatsu Hioki 1.7%

KNOCKOUT OF THE YEAR

* 1. Joe Warren vs. Joe Soto 65.8%
* 2. Mauricio Shogun vs. Lyoto Machida 19.9%
* 3. Robbie Lawler vs. Melvin Manhoef 6.7%
* 4. Marlon Sandro vs. Masanori Kanehara 2.9%
* 5. Alexander Sarnavskiy vs. Victor Kuku 2.8%
* 6. Mamoru Yamaguchi vs. Fumihiro Kitahara 1.9%

SUBMISSION OF THE YEAR

* 1. Fabricio Werdum vs. Fedor Emelianenko 69.5%
* 2. Anderson Silva vs. Chael Sonnen 19.0%
* 3. Shinya Aoki vs. Tatsuya Kawajiri 6.5%
* 4. Anthony Pettis vs. Shane Roller 2.0%
* 5. Shuichiro Katsumura vs. Masakatsu Ueda 1.9%
* 6. Artemij Sitenkov vs. James Doolan 1.1%

BEST PROMOTION

* 1. UFC 62.0%
* 2. WEC 22.1%
* 3. Strikeforce 10.3%
* 4. DREAM 3.2%
* 5. Sengoku 2.0%
* 6. Shooto 0.4%

FIGHT EVENT OF THE YEAR

* 1. UFC 117: Silva vs. Sonnen 31.0%
* 2. WEC 48: Aldo vs. Faber 24.7%
* 3. K-1: Dynamite!! 2010 22.6%
* 4. Strikeforce: Heavy Artillery 14.4%
* 5. SRC: Soul of Fight 6.4%
* 6. The Way of Shooto 3 0.9%

Source: http://www.fightopinion.com/