Following last night’s UFC 275 event the recipients of the evening’s $50,000 bonus awards were announced, and after a terrific night of entertainment there were plenty to go around, with no less than five ‘Performance Of The night’ awards being dished out instead of the usual two.
Earning ‘Fight Of The Night’ honors was an instant-classic light-heavyweight title battle between Jiri Prochazka and Glover Teixeira.
This back-and-forth war encompassed all aspects of mixed martial arts as the two fought for supremacy both on the feet and on the mat, as evidenced by the fact that when they reached the end of the second round Prochazka already had a massive cut above his left eyebrow from ground and pound elbows on the mat, while Teixeira was bleeding from the nose from an earlier exchange on the feet.
There were multiple twists and turns over the course of the fight and both men were rocked by big blows at times, but heading into the final round the scorecards would later show that it was close, but Teixeira was ahead in the eyes of two judges and the other had it neck-and-neck. In the final round it again seemed like Teixeira might be gaining the upperhand and with 90 seconds remaining he was in full mount, only for Prochazka to wall walk and pull off a reversal, then seize upon a rear-naked choke submission while Teixeira was turtled up, forcing him to tap out for a stunning last gasp stoppage win with only 28 seconds left.
One of the five ‘Performance Of The Night’ bonuses was handed to Zhang Weili, who made a big statement in her rematch with Joanna Jedrzejczyk by KO’ing her with a spinning backfist in the second round of another competitive battle, sending her opponent into retirement in the process.
Jake Matthews was another impressive performer on the night, managing to convincingly outstrike Andre Fialho all fight long until a big flurry of punches against the cage delivered a KO finish midway through the second round.
Also scooping up a performance bonus was Jack Della Maddelena, who had to battle his way out of a dangerous choke early in his fight with Ramazan Emeev, only to then punish him quickly after they returned to the feet with big body shots that sunk his opponent to the mat for a first round TKO stoppage.
Hayisaer Maheshate made an immediate impact in his UFC debut as he managed to pull off a 74 second KO finish with a counter right hand while backing up against the on-rushing Steve Garcia.
Rounding off the bonus awards was Silvana Gomez Juarez, who took just 82 seconds to KO Liang Na with big right hands on the feet.
