Following last night’s UFC 200 event the recipients of the evening’s $50,000 bonus awards were announced.
On this occasion there was no ‘Fight Of The Night’ award, so four ‘Performance Of The Night’ bonuses were dished out instead.
Earning the first ‘Performance Of The Night’ award was Amanda Nunes who stunned Miesha Tate with big punches in the opening round, leaving her bloodied up. Tate’s legs eventually buckled under the heavy artillery coming here way, allowing Nunes to take her back and sink in the fight-ending rear-naked choke mid-way through the round to become the new UFC woman’s bantamweight champion.
Next up for a performance bonus was former heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez who looked back to his old self against Travis Browne as he applied relentless pressure on the feet, stunned him with an unexpected wheel kick, and then started to work his wrestling game. This was classic Cain as he prevented Browne from standing and began to punish him with ground and pound, leading to a TKO stoppage.
It seems only fitting that the UFC’s bonus king Joe Lauzon bolstered his bank balance yet again courtesy of a stunning first round TKO destruction of Diego Sanchez. ‘The Nightmare’ is known for his almost unparalleled durability, yet Lauzon had him in all kinds of trouble early one with punches, flooring him twice and then unleashing a barrage of blows against the cage that left the referee with no option but to step in to save Sanchez from further punishment.
Wrapping up the ‘Performance Of The Night’ awards, Gegard Mousasi was in fine form as he took out a potentially tricky opponent in Thiago Santos. Mousasi applied pressure in the stand-up early in the opening round and eventually dropped him and got on top. Eventually Santos was able to rise back up, but as he did so, Mousasi nailed him with an uppercut, sending him right back down again, with a left hook also landing on the way, before a few follow-up strikes on the ground delivered a knockout victory.
