UFC 318 Bonus Awards

Following last night’s UFC 318 event in New Orleans the recipients of the evening’s $50,000 bonus awards were announced.

‘Fight Of The Night’ honors actually went to a back-and-forth preliminary card battle between Brendan Allen and Marvin Vettori as they attempted to settle their differences over three intense rounds.

Allen was able to bloody his rival’s nose in the opening exchanges and also landed takedowns, but then Vettori was able to reverse the position and landed his own ground-and-pound, before they went back to trading blows on the feet. In the following rounds they continued to trade hard-hitting strikes, with both showing strong chins to absorb repeated blows. However, while ‘The Italian Dream’ never wilted and slugged it out until the end he was wearing more visible damage and seemed more fatigued, which would lead to a unanimous decision victory for Allen (30-27 x2, 29-28), though the action was closer than that might suggest.

The UFC also opted to dish out three additional ‘Performance Of The Night’ bonuses thanks to a preliminary card that was filled with big finishes.

They included Ateba Gautier, who took just 70 seconds to finish Robert Valentin after landing a left hand followed by an uppercut and then a right hand over the top that sent his opponent to the mat in a defensive shell, before blasting him with ground-and-pound for the TKO stoppage.

Big brand fashion model Islam Dulatov is also a fearsome fighter and proved it by making his UFC debut in style with a first round KO finish over Adam Fugitt. Dulatov is now 12-1 in his MMA career, with all his wins coming inside the distance, but remarkably he’ll be back to work as a model on Monday, as win or lose he had a GQ fashion shoot planned.

Carli Judice also earned a performance bonus after she set the tone for the evening in the opening fight with a third round TKO finish of Nicolle Caliari courtesy of a knee to the body.