Following last night’s UFC Fight Night 189 event in Las Vegas the recipients of the evening’s $50,000 bonus awards were announced.
The ‘Fight Of The Night’ was an easy one to call as Santiago Ponzinibbio and Miguel Baeza put on not only the best scrap on the card, but also one of the best wars of the year so far.
Baeza looked very composed and clinical on the outside early in the fight, with his repeated calf kicks in particular appearing to be taking a big toll on his opponent
However, Ponzinibbio showed great heart to battle on through that early adversity and as the second round progressed his constant forward pressure and good work with the jab appeared to be wearing on Baeza, while he was also getting off some big calf kicks of his own.
Despite Baeza’s best efforts, it was Ponzinibbio who also made the bigger impact in the final round as he left it all in the cage and was rewarded with a unanimous decision victory (29-28 x3).
After a lackluster performance last time out, headline Jairzinho Rozenstruik made amends with a buzzer-beating first round TKO finish of Augusto Sakai, which also earned him a ‘Performance Of The Night’ bonus.
In the dying moments of that opening stanza, Rozenstruik first punched to the body, then came upstairs with a hook followed by a right hand that floored Sakai, with a few punches on the mat sealing his return to winning ways at the 4.59min mark.
Also scooping up a performance bonus was Marcin Tybura, who found himself in survival mode in the first round as Walt Harris hurt him in an all-guns-blazing assault.
However, Tybura was able to hang in there long enough to find an opening for the takedown and soon was on Harris’ back and landed a number of heavy punches, flattened him out and continued to rain down heavy leather to secure a first round TKO stoppage.
