Following last night’s UFC 289 event in Vancouver the recipients of the evening’s $50,000 bonus awards were announced.
‘Fight Of The Night’ honors were handed to the main card opening fight between Marc-Andre Barriault and Eryk Anders, which went the full 15 minutes.
This was a hard-fought battle throughout, but it was Barriault who enjoyed the biggest moments, including dropping Anders early in the opening round with a body kick followed by a right hook.
Barriault’s body kicks would be a consistent weapon throughout the fight as he got the better of the striking action, but all credit to Anders for continually pushing to try to change the outcome and working hard in the clinch in particular, but in the end it was the Canadian’s night and he emerged with a clear unanimous decision (30-27 x3).
Co-main event winner Charles Oliveira was the big fan-favorite on the night and he delivered another action-packed display that was worthy of his reputation against Beneil Dariush to earn one of two ‘Performance Of The Night’ awards.
Early on in the fight Dariush showed his willingness to compete with Oliveira on the mat despite the Brazilian’s submission prowess as he got on top and landed some ground-and-pound. However, later in the round when Oliveira got back to his feet he started to unleash the full extent of his striking arsenal, breaking through his opponent’s guard with a head kick and following up with a left hook and then two heavy right hooks that dropped him, before dropping down a punishing barrage of ground-and-pound blows to seal a first round TKO finish.
Also earning a performance bonus was Canada’s own Mike Malott who impressed in his convincing win against Adam Fugitt. He looked comfortable in the opening round as he mixed in takedowns with his striking and then in the second round he suddenly surged forward to land two big hooks that dropped Fugitt to his knees, before seizing on a guillotine choke and rolling into mount to force the tapout.
