Following last night’s UFC 292 event in Boston the recipients of the evening’s $50,000 bonus awards were announced.
Earning ‘Fight Of The Night’ was one of the two TUF finals as Brad Katona re-claimed his spot on the UFC roster with a unanimous decision victory over Cody Gibson.
This proved to be one of the most hard fought finale’s to a TUF season in it’s history, with both men wearing the damage on their faces as the fight went back-and-forth on the feet for the full 15 minutes. Katona ultimately doing just enough to get the win over his rival and goes down in history as the first fighter to win TUF twice, while afterwards Dana White indicated Gibson would also win back his place in the promotion thanks to his battling performance.
Meanwhile, Sean O’Malley won a ‘Performance Of The Night’ award after he earned a stunning upset victory over Aljamain Sterling to win the bantamweight title in the main event.
The action was close up until early in the 2nd round when Sterling overextended on a lunging punch, leaving him open to a perfectly timed and placed counter right to floor him. The dazed Sterling tried to defend himself from his back as O’Malley stood over him throwing punches and hammerfists, but he still seemed dazed and soon after the ref stepped in to wave the fight off for a TKO finish that ushers in a new era at 135lbs.
co-main event winner Zhang Weili also earned a performance bonus after she dominated a game Amanda Lemos from start to finish.
Weili showed off all facets of her MMA game as she took the fight to Lemos from start to finish, enjoying long spells of control on the mat and landing good ground-and-pound along the way, while also fending off a couple of threatening d’arce chokes and also dropping her opponent with a punch in the final round too. Lemos never gave up on herself and was constantly trying to make something happen, but Weili was just too much to deal with and won unanimously by a wide margin (50-43, 50-44, 49-45).
