Following last night’s hugely entertaining UFC 217 event in New York City, the recipients of the evening’s $50,000 bonus awards were announced.
Due to the number of exciting finishes on the card, Dana White went to the unprecedented step of awarding a total of five ‘Performance Of The Night’ awards!
They included the UFC’s new middleweight champion, Georges St-Pierre who confirmed his superstar status with a big finish to take the title from Michael Bisping, dropping him with a left hook late in the third round and then using ground and pound to set up a rear-naked finish that choked the Brit unconscious.
In a night in which all the belts changed hands, new bantamweight titleholder TJ Dillashaw also earned a ‘Performance Of The Night’ bonus after he stopped his biggest rival Cody Garbrandt in the second round after initially rocking him with a head kick, then putting him down with a right hand to pave the way for a ground and pound TKO finish.
Newly crowned strawweight queen Rose Namajunas also got in on the bonus action after she produced a shocking upset against Joanna Jedrzejczyk, getting the better of the early striking exchanges and then flooring her with a flush left hook followed by ground and pound that appeared to force the Polish star to tap out, though officially it was declared as a first round TKO victory.
Two other big finishes caught UFC Officials attention on the night, but since they struggled to choose between them they opted to split the $50,000 bonus in half instead to give both fighters a boost to their bank balance.
The first to profit from that was Ovince Saint Preux who landed a brutal head kick knockout out of nowhere in the third round of a tough fight with Corey Anderson.
Taking the other half of that $25,000 was Ricardo Ramas in the opening fight of the evening thanks to landing a highlight reel spinning back elbow to KO Aiemann Zihabi in the third round.
