Following last night’s UFC Fight Night 237 event in Mexico City the recipients of the evening’s $50,000 bonus awards were announced.
‘Fight Of The Night’ honors went to a three round striking battle between Daniel Zellhuber and Francisco Prado.
The 24-year-old Zellhuber impressed with his technique and composure during the fight, using his large size advantage to work from range with a very accurate jab in particular that soon left Prado’s right eye cut and swollen. The 21-year-old Prado would be wearing more damage on his face by the time the fight was over, but to his credit he never stopped marching forward trying to find a home for his own strikes, which made the fight somewhat competitive, though Zellhuber would go on to earn a unanimous decision victory.
One of two ‘Performance Of The Night’ bonus was handed to co-main event winner Brian Ortega, who served up a reminder of both his toughness and high-level BJJ skills on his way to a third round submission win over Yair Rodriguez.
Ortega actually managed to injure himself during the pre-fight introductions when he rolled his ankle while jumping up and down, and despite doing his best to ignore it he ended up having a tough first round anyway as Rodriguez hurt him in the early striking exchanges. However, there’s no quit in Ortega and he battled through that early adversity and continued to take the fight to Rodriguez, which opened up opportunities to take the fight to the mat, and early in the third round ‘T-City’ was rewarded for his tenacity when he seized on a fight-ending arm-triangle choke.
Also earning a performance bonus was Manuel Torres, who ate a big punch from Chris Duncan at the start of their fight, but then was able to show off his ground skills as he took his opponent down and sunk in a rear-naked choke finish less than two minutes into the fight.
