Following last night’s UFC On ESPN 32 event the recipients of the evening’s $50,000 bonus awards were announced.
‘Fight Of The Night’ was an easy award to pick after the headlining fight between Calvin Kattar and Giga Chikadze turned into a five round war.
Chikadze started brightly with his hard-hitting kicks taking a toll, but Kattar was more than willing to trade with him and then appeared to sap some of his strength with his some wrestling later in the opening round.
As the rounds went on Kattar’s constant forward pressure and high-volume striking put Chikadze on the back foot and was visibly draining his cardio, though he showed his heart and did continue to strike as best he could, even if his offense no longer had the same sting as it did before.
In the end though it was clear that Kattar was in control and he emerged with a unanimous decision victory (50-45 x2, 50-44).
Heavyweight co-main event winner Jake Collier took home one of two ‘Performance Of The Night’ bonuses after he came out swinging early in his fight with Chase Sherman, then caught a kick and used it to bring him to the mat, where heavy ground-and-pound elbows opened up a cut to the forehead of his opponent and led to him taking his back and forcing a tap via rear-naked choke.
Also securing a performance bonus was Viachslav Borschchev, who had to weather an early storm as Dakota Bush came out aggressively on the feet with big strikes and then was able to get the kickboxer to the ground too. However, he survived that spell and then ended the fight with a single, powerful body shot that folded Bush for a KO victory.
