Following last night’s UFC 298 event the recipients of the evening’s $50,000 bonus awards were announced.
The final prelim of the card between Amanda Lemos and Mackenzie Dern fought off stiff competition from the main card war between Robert Whittaker and Paulo Costa to earn ‘Fight Of The Night’ honors.
The first round was competitive, with Lemos making good use of leg and body kicks in particular, though Dern was then able to counter by taking the fight to the mat to work for submission opportunities. In the 2nd round Lemos’ striking advantage really started to take hold, dropping Dern at one point and leaving her face bloodied and bruised. Dern survived though and regained a little confidence with a sweep to get on top late in the round. She then carried that momentum into the final five minutes, hurting Lemos with a punch, though she was then taken down. A ground battle then ensued, with Dern getting the better of it, though ultimately it wasn’t to be enough as Lemos emerged with a unanimous decision victory (29-28 x3).
Ilia Topuria was a rightful recipient of one of the three ‘Performance Of The Night’ bonuses on the night after he put an end to Alexander Volkanovski’s long featherweight reign with a flurry of strikes in the second round that culminated in a perfectly timed, placed and executed right hook to the chin that knocked him out cold.
Meanwhile Anthony Hernandez secured a performance bonus after he submitted Roman Kopylov with a 2nd round rear-naked choke, while Zhang Mingyang earned his bonus after an early knockout finish against Brendson Riberio.
