Following last night’s UFC Fight Night 190 event the recipients of the evening’s $50,000 bonus awards were announced.
Earning ‘Fight Of The Night’ honors was a very competitive main card match-up between Timur Valiev and Raoni Barcelos, which went the distance.
Barcelos striking looked slick and fast from start to finish, but in the opening round it was Valiev who was being more active fighter offensively. Then in the second round Barcelos made a big impact, dropping Valiev twice in that five minute spell.
However, though Barcelos now appeared to be in the driving seat, Valiev dug deep and continued to implement his striking game in the final round, while Barcelos was pressuring, but seemed to be waiting for the right moments to strike rather than let his hands go, and that proved to be costly for him on the scorecards as Valiev would emerge with a majority decision win (28-28, 29-28 x2).
One of two ‘Performance Of The Night’ bonuses was handed to Kennedy Nzechukwu, who was continually having to fend off takedown attempts from Danilo Marquez during the fight and found himself in some tough spots on the mat and with his opponent hopping onto his back while standing too.
Nzechukwu survived though and dramatically shifted the momentum in his favor in the final round as he continually pressed forward landing big punches that led to Marquez wilting and being backed up against the cage and eventually the ref stepping in to end the bout by TKO as the barrage of blows continued.
Also earning a performance bonus was Marcin Prachnio, who won his preliminary card bout against Isaac Villaneuva after he connected cleanly with a liver kick early in the second round that his opponent couldn’t recover from, resulting in a TKO stoppage.
