Sherdog.com’s 2014 Beatdown of the Year

3. Frankie Edgar vs. Cub Swanson
UFC Fight Night “Edgar vs. Swanson”
Nov. 22 | Austin, Texas

There is a reason Edgar appears twice on this list of the year’s most brutal beatdowns: When “The Answer” finds a solution to the opponent in front of him, it is almost impossible to halt his momentum.

Such was the case in Edgar’s encounter with Swanson -- a bout which most in the MMA world anticipated to be a highly competitive affair between two of the featherweight division’s finest. What materialized was a tremendous thrashing of Swanson and arguably the finest performance of Edgar’s career.

For a fight that would soon become so lopsided, the opening round was fairly close. Edgar’s speed advantage was present, as always, but Swanson was able to get off and neutralize the tool generally considered to be the ex-champ’s path to success against the striker: takedowns. Swanson grinned as he stuffed a pair of early shots, though that grin would fade late in the round when Edgar twice dragged him to the canvas. The second stanza was the beginning of the end for Swanson, as the Jackson-Wink MMA product was controlled on the ground for more than half the round while Edgar opened him up with dozens of short elbows and punches.

The takedowns only seemed to get easier for Edgar from there, as he again floored Swanson in rounds three and four to dominate from side control and half guard with relentless ground-and-pound. Swanson did well to avoid being finished but gave little for Edgar to worry about from underneath. In the middle three rounds combined, Swanson attempted only 60 strikes and landed just 13 significant shots. In the same span, Edgar threw nearly 250 total strikes, with 168 connecting, 47 of them deemed significant by FightMetric.com.

Where many fighters would have been content to coast to victory in round five, Edgar turned up the heat in search of a finish. The Ricardo Almeida student hunted for guillotine and arm-triangle chokes early in the round, and when those failed, he went back to battering Swanson’s body and head with punches and knees. Edgar achieved mount in the final minute and pushed hard for a stoppage as he slammed his beaten opponent with right hands. When a series of short, hard elbows to the face prompted Swanson to give up his back with 20 seconds remaining, Edgar saw his opportunity and locked on a nasty neck crank to coax a tap with just four ticks left on the clock -- the latest finish in UFC history.

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