Following last night’s UFC 246 event in Las Vegas the recipients of the evening’s $50,000 bonus awards were announced.
On this occasion the UFC opted not to give out a ‘Fight Of The Night’ bonus and instead broke from tradition by dishing out no less than FIVE ‘Performance Of The Night’ awards instead (it’s usually four if there’s no Fight Of THe Night).
Naturally, one of those was for Conor McGregor who delivered a stunningly swift 40 second TKO victory against Donald Cerrone in the main event.
‘The Notorious’ managed to pack a lot into that short time-frame – busting up ‘Cowboy’s’ nose and left eye with hard shoulder shrugs from the clinch to start and then landing a head kick, followed up by a series of powerful left hands that sunk him to the canvas and would lead to the referee stoppage.
Aleksei Oleinik also earned a performance bonus following a submission victory, but it didn’t come as quickly as he would have liked.
In the first round Oleinik slickly locked in a scarf-hold choke, but despite several minutes applying the technique, Maurice Greene refused to tap and there were fears ‘The Boa Constrictor’ had burned out his arms. However, despite looking tired, Oleinik again got the fight down in the second round and eventually secured an armbar finish.
Brian Kelleher had to endure early striking salvo’s from Ode Osbourne, but then took the fight to the mat and locked in a guillotine choke to claim his ‘Performance Of The Night’ award.
Also picking up the bonus was Diego Ferreira after he outgrappled Anthony Pettis and then was able to find a rear-naked choke to end the fight in the second round.
The fifth and final bonus was handed out to Drew Dober, who defied his underdog status to produce a 70 second TKO finish against Nasrat Haqparast.
