Following last night’s UFC On ESPN 6 event the recipients of the evening’s $50,000 bonus awards were announced.
Earning ‘Fight Of The Night’ honors was the co-main event grudge match between Yair Rodriguez and Jeremy Stephens.
There was no love lost between these two and Rodriguez in particular started aggressively with plenty of kicks and punches behind them. That would eventually pay dividends in the second round when a particularly hard body kick hurt Stephens and sent him to the mat, at which point ‘El Pantera’ unleashed a relentless ground and pound assault, but was unable to force a finish.
In the final stages of the round Stephens started to find his second wind and he took that into the final round, taking the fight to Rodriguez on the feet and then taking him down to land punishing blows of his own, though it wouldn’t be enough to earn him the victory.
Meanwhile, main event fighter Dominick Reyes earned a ‘Performance Of The Night’ award after he made short work of Chris Weidman by initially shrugging off his takedown attempts and then blasting him with a hard left that floored him, with follow-up hammerfists on the mat securing a first round TKO victory.
Also earning a Performance bonus was Charles Rosa who had his hometown fans cheering when he secured a first round armbar victory over Manny Bermudez.