Following last night’s UFC Fight Night 230 event the recipients of the evening’s $50,000 bonus awards were announced.
The thrilling main event clash between Edson Barboza and Sodiq Yusuff earned ‘Fight Of The Night’ honors, which has helped Barboza set a new UFC record for the most bonuses of this kind (9).
And that accolade was hard-earned as Barboza had to endure a one-sided beatdown in the opening round as Yusuff opted to go all-in on the attack early, which paid off surprisingly well as he managed to floor the Brazilian with his heavy-handed striking and continued to go on the attack looking for a finish against his shell-shocked opponent for the rest of the round.
However, Barboza not only survived, but also came out ready to fight back in the second round, which he did admirably, to the extent that late in the third round he was able to floor Yusuff with a spinning wheel kick. It was now Yusuff’s turn to survive, and he did, but his gas tank had already looked depleted prior to that, and in the two rounds that followed he just wasn’t able to change the momentum of the fight as Barboza proved to be the fresher, more impactful striker to secure a unanimous decision victory (49-46, 48-46 x2).
Meanwhile, Jonathan Martinez was a worthy ‘Performance Of The Night’ winner after he put on a leg kick clinic against Adrian Yanez, leaving his opponent limping and clearly compromised after only a few such strikes early in the opening round. It didn’t get any better for Yanez from that point on as he slumped to the mat several times in the minutes due to more leg kicks in the minutes that followed, until eventually mid-way through the second round the ref had seen enough and waved off the fight, handing Martinez his second leg kick TKO finish in his last three fights.
Also taking home a performance bonus was Michel Pereira who got his move up to middleweight off to a perfect start by TKO’ing Andre Petroski in just 66 seconds, sending his opponent crashing backwards to the canvas with a single punch and then sealing the deal with hard-hitting ground-and-pound.
