Following last night’s UFC On ESPN 48 event the recipients of the evening’s $50,000 bonus awards were announced.
‘Fight Of The Night’ honors went to a preliminary card barnburner between Elves Brener and Guram Kutateladze that came to an unexpected conclusion in the final round.
Kutateladze had been a big favorite heading into this fight and at the end of the first round he rocked Brener with big elbows and punches that put him down one knee momentarily.
He survived until the end of the round, only to be caught by a big knee and then suffer a nasty cut high on the forehead due to ground-and-pound elbows early in the 2nd round. Again he survived though and despite eating more hurtful blows he was still doing his best to throw back with some of his own too. The war continued in the final five minutes until suddenly the blood-soaked Brener unleashed a short left hook below the ear that rocked Kutateladze to his core, sending him woozily slumping to the mat to claim a stunning comeback TKO victory.
Sean Strickland won his ‘Performance Of The Night’ bonus after being forced to weather an early storm in his main event fight with Abus Magomedov, who started aggressively with heavy punches and kicks, while also leaving his opponent with blurred vision due to an accidental eyepoke.
However, Strickland then began to turn the screw in the 2nd round as Magomedov began to run out of steam, hurting him with a one-two and then pouring on the pressure with punches in bunches in the minutes that followed until he floored him and delivered a TKO finish via ground-and-pound.
Also earning a ‘Performance Of The Night’ bonus was Nursulton Ruziboev, who made short work of Brunno Ferreira after catching a kick while simultaneously landing a right hand to deliver a knockout finish just 77 seconds into the fight.
