Following last night’s UFC 283 event in Rio the recipients of the evening’s $50,000 bonus awards were announced.
Earning ‘Fight Of The Night’ honors was the main event battle for the vacant 205lb title between Jamahal Hill and Glover Teixeira.
Both fighters gave their all in this one, but there was no doubt by the end that Hill was the worthy winner. In the early stages of the fight Hill did a good job of defying Teixeira’s repeated takedown attempts, and that enabled him to go to work with his strikes to good effect. With his speed and reach advantage Hill was able to find the mark often, but it was his head kicks in particular that really started to take a toll on Teixeira, wobbling him several times.
Teixeira showed remarkable resilience to keep battling through that adversity despite his face becoming an increasingly bloodied, swollen mess and he did manage to land some hard punches himself and opened a significant cut under Hill’s right eye. In the later round he also landed some key takedowns, but Hill coped better than expected on the mat and even enjoyed a spell on top in the final round as he headed towards a decisive unanimous decision victory (50-44) that would lead to him being crowned the new light-heavyweight champion.
Meanwhile, in the prelims Ismael Bonfim earned one of two ‘Performance Of The Night’ awards courtesy of a big knee that delivered a second round KO finish against Terrance McKinney.
Also securing a performance bonus was Jailton Almeida, who dominated Shamil Abdurakhimov on the mat to secure a second round ground-and-pound TKO finish.
