Following last night’s UFC 232 event the recipients of the evening’s $50,000 bonus awards were announced.
Earning ‘Fight Of The Night’ honors was the main card opening featherweight battle between Alex Volkanovski and Chad Mendes.
Early in the fight Mendes appeared to have a slight edge and early in the second he rocked Volkanovski with a hard punch and landed takedowns too.
However, Volkanovski was never discouraged and was always quickly back to his feet and later in the round he once again rose to his feet and began throwing heavy leather at Mendes and the punches started to take their toll, before a left hook followed by a right hand to the temple dropped him and led to the TKO stoppage.
Meanwhile, Amanda Nunes rightly won a ‘Performance Of The Night’ award for her stunning first minute destruction of Cris Cyborg in which he buckled the dominant featherweight champion’s legs with one of her first punches of the fight and then continued to pick her apart thereafter.
As soon as Cyborg righted herself Nunes waded back in with another flurry of pinpoint accurate punches and dropped her with two big hooks. Cyborg got back to her feet once more, only for Nunes to hammer her with a right hook that sent her falling face-first to the canvas for the KO finish with only 51 seconds on the clock to win the 145lb title and end her opponent’s 20-fight winning streak.
Also earning a ‘Performance Of The Night’ award was Ryan Hall who became the first person ever to submit BJ Penn as he caught him by surprise by dropping down to the mat and catching him in a heel hook that forced a swift tapout midway through the first round.
