UFC 316 Bonus Awards

Following last night’s UFC 316 event the recipients of the evening’s $50,000 bonus awards were announced.

On this occasion the UFC opted to serve up four ‘Performance Of The Night’ awards, and that included main event winner Merab Dvalishvili, who earned a rare stoppage victory in his rematch with Sean O’Malley, while extending his unbeaten streak to 13 fights.

As expected Dvalishvili applied relentless pressure during the fight, though O’Malley’s takedown defense did seem a bit sharper in the early rounds this time. Meanwhile though Merab was finding a home for some of his punches on the feet, and by the third round he was starting to wear down O’Malley’s resistance to his wrestling as he took him down repeatedly before catching his opponent out by going for a guillotine choke, and then switching to a north-south choke during a scramble to force O’Malley to tap out.

Kayla Harrison also earned a performance bonus in the co-main event to go along with her newly won bantamweight title after she stopped Julianna Pena late in the second round.

Harrison was able to take down and control Pena in the opening round, and when her opponent landed a couple of illegal upkicks it saw her also being deducted a point too. In the second round Pena continued to struggle to find a way into the fight, and Harrison was able to put her on her back again, and looked to set up an arm triangle. Late in the round Harrison gave up on that, but with just seconds left in the round she suddenly switched to a kimura instead and quickly forced Pena to tap out.

Another main card winner Kevin Holland also scooped up a performance bonus courtesy of a submission finish early in the second round after he managed to catch a Vicente Luque kick and use that to take him down, before immediately setting up a fight-ending d’arce choke.

The final bonus of the evening was handed to debuting prelim fighter Joo Sang Yoo, aka ‘Zombie Jr’, who perfectly placed a short left hook to the chin of the onrushing Jeka Saragih to send him face-first to the canvas for a stunning KO finish just 28 seconds into the fight.