Following last night’s UFC 331 event in Los Angeles the recipients of the evening’s $100,000 bonus awards were announced.
Earning ‘Fight Of The Night’ honors was the main event flyweight title battle between Joshua Van and Alexandre Pantoja, which went back and forth at a frantic pace for five full rounds.
Van proved to have the faster, more technical striking in the many exchanges and also showed off vastly improved takedown defense, but Pantoja was landing big strikes too and did have some success with takedowns and top control. With Pantoja spending much of the fourth round on top it looked like everything was riding on the final five minutes, and Van came up big, managing to drop the former champ and then continue to get the better of the striking action up until the final horn to secure a unanimous decision victory and retain the 125lb title.
Two ‘Performance Of The Night’ bonuses were also handed out, including one for co-main event winner Arman Tsarukyan, who spent much of the first round trying to break through Mauricio Ruffy’s much-improved takedown defense, only to then suddenly unleash a huge left elbow strike that instantly KO’d the striker, with a right elbow also landing before he hit the canvas for a stunning highlight-reel finish.
Also earning a performance bonus was prelim fighter Casey O’Neill, who found herself in trouble in the first round against Eduarda Moura after being taken down and caught in an anaconda choke submission. However, O’Neill got free of that and then put her name in the hat for ‘Submission Of The Year’ by elevating Moura with her legs and in one slick move somehow managing to seize upon an armbar and turn belly-down on it to deliver a sensational submission finish.
The event also featured a unique one-off ‘Proper Chaos’ $50,000 bonus award in association with the new season of ‘MobLand’ on Paramount+, which went to Sean Sharaf, who delivered one of the biggest upsets in recent memory when he knocked out blue-chip heavyweight prospect Gable Steveson with a left hook just 12 seconds into their main card clash!
