Dana White surprisingly snubs Jon Jones as he names top five performances of 2024
01/09/2025 06:05 AM
MMA fans might be counting down to the first event of 2025, UFC Fight Night: Dern vs Ribas 2, but that doesn't mean we're done with recapping what was an insane 2024.
From world championship-winning knockouts to bone-crushing submissions; UFC CEO Dana White has just revealed his personal five best performances of 2024 – but who deserves to win this coveted final award?
Dana White names his top five UFC performances of 2024
In 2024, across 42 unique events, a grand total of 174 post-fight bonuses were awarded to fighters: with approximately $9.9 million presented to either 'Fight of the Night' or 'Performance of the Night' winners.
Across the full 174 post-fight bonuses, a total of 22 fighters earned more than one $50K check. Top of the pile was Shara 'Bullet' Magomedov, who took home three bonuses, and Carlos 'The Nightmare' Prates, who earned four big $50K checks this past year.
But who had the single best performance of 2024?
Well, UFC CEO Dana White has just revealed his top five greatest octagon accomplishments from last year; and unsurprisingly, all five nominees earned themselves at least one post-fight bonus.
The first nomination goes to Ilia 'El Matador' Topuria for his sensational featherweight title-winning performance against Alexander Volkanovski at UFC 298, which went down all the way back in February.
Whilst the Spanish Georgian sensation was only a slight underdog to 'The Great', not many fans were predicting he'd land such a vicious knockout, with only 33% of Tapology Users picking Topuria prior to that PPV showdown.
The second nomination is Max Holloway's iconic BMF title-winning performance against Justin Gaethje from UFC 300 in April – which, of course, ended in 'Blessed' scoring a last-second KO in a finishing sequence straight out of a Hollywood movie.
It shouldn't really be a surprise to see Holloway on this shortlist, especially since he left the arena with both the performance of the night and fight of the night bonuses – totaling $600,000.
The third nomination goes to Alex 'Poatan' Pereira and specifically, his second of three world title victories in 2024 – that being his second-round KO of Jiri Prochazka at UFC 303 in June.
Pereira could have been nominated for any of his three wins in 2024 but considering that he out-landed the former champion 38-7 in significant strikes, this one was the pick of the bunch.
Coming in as Dana White's next-best performance of 2024 was Khamzat Chimaev's unbelievable submission win over Robert Whittaker at UFC 308 in October.
The vast majority of UFC fans were expecting Whittaker to give Chimaev his toughest test to date in the octagon; not many of us expected 'Borz' to, quite literally, crush the Australian's jaw inside the very first round.
The fifth and final performance of the year took place just a few minutes after Chimaev's victory when Ilia Topuria shook the MMA world by knocking out Max Holloway to retain his 145lb title.
What makes this performance worthy of being on this shortlist isn't just the fact that Holloway had never been finished before UFC 308, but also that Topuria had predicted such a finish for the months prior.
So, Dana White's top five best UFC performances of 2024 are as followed.
- Ilia Topuria vs Alexander Volkanovski – UFC 298, February 2024
- Max Holloway vs Justin Gaethje – UFC 300, April 2024
- Alex Pereira vs Jiri Prochazka – UFC 303, June 2024
- Khamzat Chimaev vs Robert Whittaker – UFC 308, October 2024
- Ilia Topuria vs Max Holloway – UFC 308, October 2024
Who do you think deserves to win performance of the year?
