Following last night’s entertaining UFC 265 event, Dana White was generously dishing out $50,000 bonus awards left, right and center.
First up was the ‘Fight Of The Night’ award, which went to the top billed prelim between Rafael Fiziev and Bobby Green.
That turned out to be a stand-up war, and Fiziev’s technical muay thai ability shone through, but Green showed off a sturdy chin and was always a willing and able dance partner, landing some good strike of his own, and did well in the final round, though ultimately it was Fiziev who emerged with the unanimous decision victory.
White also announced that there would be no less than three recipients of ‘Performance Of The Night’ bonuses, but when MMAJunkie’s John Morgan pointed out that headliner Ciryl Gane was conspicuously missing from the resulting list, the UFC president looked sheepish and declared that the new interim heavyweight champ would also be getting $50,000 too.
Gane was certainly well worth that award as he completely shut down Derrick Lewis with his sharp, technical striking and first-class distance movement and speed, then in the third round he demonstrated that he’s also got plenty of power too as he first made ‘The Black Beast’ visibly wilt with a heavy low kick, then landed big punches that ultimately sank him to the canvas and led to the TKO victory.
Vicente Luque secured a performance award after he impressively managed to not only survive Michael Chiesa’s early submission attempts on the mat, but then immediately turned the screw when he broke free by latching on a d’arce choke submission of his own that led to a tapout victory.
Also earning a performance bonus was Jessica Penne, who was able to claim a first round armbar submission win against Karolina kowalkiewicz earlier on the prelim card.
Finally, the fourth performance of the night award was handed to Miles Johns, who waited until the third round to deliver a fight-ending knockout blow to Anderson dos Santos.
