Following last night’s UFC 327 event in Miami, Florida the recipients of the evening’s $100,000 bonus awards were announced.
Earning ‘Fight Of The Night’ honors was one of the wildest brawls in UFC heavyweight history as Josh Hokit and Curtis Blaydes slugged it out for three rounds.
Hokit set the tone immediately by rushing out firing off wild power punches and soon had Blaydes wobbled. However, rather than just wilting, Blaydes opted to fight fire with fire and began landing some big shots of his own. They were fighting at a frenetic pace, and given the amount of punches that were landing it looked like there was no chance of the bout going beyond the first round, yet somehow they were able to push past the point of exhaustion to continue scrapping out for the full 15 minutes. And in the end it was Hokit’s aggression and output that helped him to a unanimous decision win (29-28 x3).
Josh Hokit’s bloody battle was far from a technical clinic, but it was so entertaining that he also earned a ‘Performance Of The Night’ bonus too, and in addition to that was unexpectedly handed a spot on the UFC: White House card, where he’ll fight Derrick Lewis.
The other performance bonus went to main event winner Carlos Ulberg, whose challenge for the vacant 205lb title got off to a disastrous start when he appeared to badly injure his knee early on in the opening round, leaving him struggling to stay upright.
Fortunately for him, rather than going in for the kill, Jiri Prochazka appeared to take pity on him and offered to trade punches at close quarters. However, that proved to be a fatal strategic blunder as soon after Ulberg unleashed a counter left hook that floored Prochazka, before sealing the out-of-the-blue KO win with ground-and-pound.
