Following last night’s UFC 323 event in Las Vegas the recipients of the evening’s $50,000 bonus awards were announced.

‘Fight Of The Night’ honors went to the main event battle between Merab Dvalishvili and Petr Yan, that turned out to be a bantamweight title thriller.

Dvalishvili had largely shut down Yan the first time these two met back in 2023, but while more of the same was widely predicted, the Russian challenger had other plans. Yan’s striking was crisp as expected, but it was his strong takedown defense that changed the whole dynamic of the match-up, forcing the champion to face him on his terms. Dvalishvili didn’t shy away from that and instead willingly traded with him, but Yan was clearly the superior technician and soon was able to bust up Merab’s nose, while punishing kicks to the body had him audibly yelling out in pain. There was absolutely no quit in the very durable Dvalishvili, but there was no doubt about who was winning, and adding extra icing to the cake, Yan also had good success taking Merab down on his way to a unanimous decision victory (49-46 x2, 48-47).

Manuel Torres earned one of two ‘Performance Of The Night’ awards after he ran through Grant Dawson in the prelims, quickly gaining the upper-hand in the striking exchanges before flooring his opponent with a left hook and then finishing up with a brief barrage of blows on the mat to seal a TKO finish at the 2.25min mark.

Also earning a performance bonus was Iwo Baraniewski, who engaged in a full-blooded scrap with Ibo Aslan in the early prelims. Both men traded heavy leather with reckless abandon until Baraniewski managed to drop him twice in quick succession with right hands to pave the way for a KO finish just 89 seconds into the opening round.