Following last night’s UFC Fight Night 224 event the recipients of the evening’s $50,000 bonus awards were announced.
‘Fight Of The Night’ honors went to the main event battle between Mackenzie Dern and Angela Hill, which was hard fought from start to finish.
Dern started very aggressively with venomous striking, and to her credit not only did that prove to be effective, but she was able to sustain that level of intensity throughout the entire five round fight.
Along the way Dern dropped Hill with a punch in the opening round, rocked her with a knee to the head in the third, and was also mixing in ample amounts of clinch work, wrestling and armbar attempts, yet she was unable to find a finish.
And that was really all down to how tough Hill proved to be, never showing signs of being ready to quit despite being left with one eye swollen shut and no apparent route to victory to aim for. So Dern won plaudits for her dominant unanimous decision victory (49-43, 49-44 x2), but Hill also earned respect for her toughness.
Diego Ferreira took home one of two ‘Performance Of The Night’ bonuses after he delivered a stunning knockout victory against Michael Johnson.
There was a lot of pressure on Ferreira here after losing his last three fights, and in the early going it was Johnson who seemed to be getting the better of the action with his swift striking. However, Ferreira turned things around in an instant mid-way through the second round when he unleashed a brutal overhand right that left Johnson frozen stiff as he toppled backwards onto the canvas out cold.
Also securing a performance bonus was Viacheslav Borshchev, who made the most of his punching power to drop Maheshate at the end of the first round and then continued to punish him in the second round until a thunderous right hand sealed his TKO victory.
