Following UFC Fight Night 291 in Edmonton the recipients of the $100,000 bonus awards were announced.
There was plenty of options for the UFC brass to choose from on this occasion after a record equalling 12 finishes, but they did manage to whittle that down to four ‘Performance Of The Night’ bonuses.
That included one for main event winner Mike Malott, who delivered one of the knockouts of the year when his knee strike (which may well have actually been a kick attempt) connected flush as Joaquin Buckley was lunging forward, sending his mouthpiece flying off in one direction as he crashed face first to the canvas in the other, before a follow-up punch completed the brutal KO mid-way through the 2nd round.
Marc-Andre Barriault also pocketed a performance bonus after he survived being taken down by Kyle Daukaus early in the first round, then started to get off some strikes while trying to defend another takedown attempt. A few elbows landed, but it was a knee to the face that really got the ball rolling, and soon after another knee hit the mark and put Daukaus down, followed by a big barrage of ground-and-pound strikes to seal the TKO finish.
Mandel Nallo completely dominated the striking battle against Nate Landwehr, easily finding a home for his straight punches to leave his opponent’s face increasingly bloodied, but he was also delivering punishing calf kicks too. It was one of those that eventually took Landwehr’s lead leg out from under him early in the second round, with a few ground-and-pound blows then putting a stamp on the performance to win by TKO.
Joel Faglier won the battle of heavyweight newcomers against Javad Mahjoub on the preliminary card, which didn’t look likely in the first round as his opponent repeatedly swarmed him with strikes. However, Mahjoub couldn’t find the finish and exhausted himself trying, leading him to be a sitting duck for the durable Faglier to pick off in the second round for a comeback TKO victory.
