Following last night’s UFC Fight Night 244 event the recipients of the evening’s $50,000 bonus awards were announced.
Earning ‘Fight Of The Night’ honors was the main event battle between Brandon Royval and Tatsuro Taira, which went the full five rounds.
This was a hard-fought fight that ebbed and flowed, with Royval winning the striking exchanges with his active and more accurate offense, while Tatsuro Taira was able to show of his skilled grappling ability on the mat. That led to the match appearing to still be up for grabs in the final five minutes, which saw Royval turning the tables on Taira by using his own ground game to win the round and emerge with a split-decision victory.
Both ‘Performance Of The Night’ bonuses were awarded to fighters on the preliminary section of the card, including Clayton Carpenter, who controlled his fight with Lucas Rocha on the mat before sending him to sleep with a rear-naked choke in the second round.
Also earning a performance bonus was Ramazonbek Temirov, who took just 2.50mins of the opening round to finish CJ Vergara, dropping him with a left hook, then again with a right hand, before allowing his opponent up only to fell him one final time with a hook to the body.