Following last night’s UFC 209 event in Las Vegas the recipients of the evening’s $50,000 bonus awards were announced.
Earning ‘Fight Of The Night’ honors was the high-level striking battle between David Teymur and Lando Vannata in the co-main event.
Vannata was as creative as ever, landing a cartwheel kick at one point, occasionally countering with spinning kicks and just generally being fun to watch and tricky to deal with.
However, Teymur wasn’t overawed and proved to be more than up to the challenge as he landed big punches, kicks and knees that couldn’t put away his opponent, but did ensure he walked away with a unanimous decision victory.
Meanwhile, Darren Elkins claimed one of two ‘Performance Of The Night’ awards after his memorable come-from-behind victory against the previously unbeaten Mirsad Bektic.
Elkins was beaten into a bloody pulp by Bektic in the opening round and by the third round looked well on his way to a dominant decision loss when he suddenly shifted the momentum, hurting Bektic with a right hand and then TKO’d him with a head kick.
Iuri Alcantara also enjoyed a huge comeback victory against Luke Sanders that landed him a ‘Performance Of The Night’ bonus too.
Sanders repeatedly beat on a turtled up Alcantara against the cage during the fight and at times looks extremely close to finishing him, but Alcantara did just enough to keep the referee at bay and then in the second round managed to scramble into position for a kneebar submission that forced an out-of-the-blue finish.
