Following last night’s UFC On FOX 23 event in Denver, Colorado the recipients of the evening’s $50,000 bonus awards were announced.
UFC officials opted to award four ‘Performance Of The Night’ bonuses on this occasion, with one being dished out to each of the four main card winners.
That included main event winner Valentina Shevchenko who was able to show of her grappling skills against Julianna Pena, who spent much of the fight clinching up with ‘Bullet’ against the cage looking to take her to the mat.
However, it was actually Shevchenko who succeeded in taking Pena down with a couple of nice sweeps in the first round, and When Pena finally did get her opponent on her back in the second round things things didn’t go according to plan, with the Russian managing to lock in a fight-ending armbar submission.
Co-main event winner Jorge Masvidal also earned a performance bonus thanks to an impressive demolition of Donald Cerrone.
The first round was relatively evenly contested on the feet for the most part, right up until the final seconds of the round when Masvidal countered with strikes off a body kick from ‘Cowboy,’ sending him crashing to the canvas.
Masvidal followed up with strikes on the ground looking for a finish, but the bell saved Cerrone, though he looked worse for wear heading back to his corner.
Cerrone hadn’t fully cleared the cobwebs heading into the second and again was dropped as he was countered with punches after attempting a body kick, and though he got back to his feet the referee soon came in to end the fight as Masvidal blasted him with body shots against the cage.
Rising heavyweight star Francis Ngannou also earned a ‘Performance Of The Night’ ward after picking up his biggest win to date against Andrei Arlovski.
It didn’t take Ngannou long to make his mark, with just 92 seconds having elapsed when he landed a big right hook that toppled Arlovski to the mat, with follow up strikes on the mat sealing the TKO victory.
Finally, Jason Knight banked a performance bonus after he was able to tap out Alex Caceres with a second round rear-naked choke, extending his winning run to three fights.
