3. Don Frye vs Yoshihiro Takayama
This fight is absolutely just two guys throwing down like their lives depended on it. Frye had just defeated Ken Shamrock, who was making an unsuccessful return to MMA, something he would make a habit of later in his career. This fight really sums up everything that Frye was about during his fighting career; just go in there and throw down.
While this fight won “Fight of the Year” in 2002, it also represented the end of Frye’s period on top of the sport. After defeating Takayama his record was 15W-1L, but seemingly out of the blue Frye just stopped winning. He would drop his next 4 fights, and would finally have to face Akebono Taro to get back in the win column. After getting a couple of wins in the Heros promotion, he got an invite back to Pride, but was defeated by James Thompson (which didn’t even happen to Kimbo). In all Don Frye went 5W-8L after this bout after having won 15 of his first 16.
