Following yesterday’s UFC Fight Night 85 event in Brisbane, Australia the recipients of the evenings $50,000 bonus awards were announced.
Earning ‘Fight Of The Night’ honors was a highly competitive, technical battle between two up and coming talents, Jake Matthews and Johnny Case. The bout appeared to be heading to a decision until Matthews managed to find a rear-naked choke submission that forced his opponent to tap with just 15 seconds left on the clock.
There was little doubt about who would be getting the two ‘Performance Of The Night’ bonuses on this occasion, with the first going to main event star Mark Hunt who produced another one of his fan favorite walk-off knockouts against Frank Mir. Hunt perfectly timed a thunderous right hand that floored the former champion just a few minutes into the fight, then cooly walked away while shaking his head as if to say, “Nope, you’re not getting back up after that.” The referee agreed and the fight was over.
Also pocketing a ‘Performance Of The Night’ bonus was Neil Magny who produced a truly impressive comeback victory after being on the verge of being stopped by ground and pound in the first round by the aggressive Hector Lombard. Magny someone managed to gut it out and then immediately set about trying to work his way back into the fight. He was surprisingly still light on his feet in the second round, and survived being dropped by another punch before really beginning to turn the screw on his tiring opponent, and would have finished him late in the stanza had the ref not been so reluctant to call a halt to proceedings. However, Magny went straight back to work in the third, getting Lombard down and dishing out more punishment that finally convinced the ref that enough was enough, resulting in the TKO stoppage.
