Following yesterday’s UFC Fight Night 250 event in Riyadh, the recipients of the $50,000 post-fight bonuses were announced.
Earning ‘Fight Of The Night’ honors was a scrappy main card bantamweight battle between Vinicius Oliveira and Said Nurmagomedov, which went the full 15 minutes.
Nurmagomedov started brightly with his diverse array of agile kicks, but in the second it was Oliveira’s aggression and forward pressure that started to wear on his opponent. Fatigue was clearly becoming an issue for both men in the second half of the fight, but Oliveira coped with it better, still managing to maintain a decent offensive output despite becoming increasingly wild and often just winging his punches. Nurmagomedov fared less well and couldn’t muster the energy to successfully execute either his strikes or takedowns, leading to Oliveira emerging with a unanimous decision victory (29-28 x3).
Main event winner Nassourdine Imavov earned one of two ‘Performance Of The Night’ bonuses after he rocked former champion Israel Adesanya early in the second round with an overhand right that sent him falling backwards against the cage, where he was greeted by an uppercut before he completed his slump to the canvas. A brief ground-and-pound assault later and Imavov sealed an impressive TKO victory that gave his title ambitions a major boost, while consigning Adesanya to a third loss in a row.
Also earning a performance bonus was prelim card fighter Bogdan Grad, who was hunting for takedowns early and often in the opening round of his fight with Lucas Alexander, but without much success. However, Grad continued to apply pressure in the second round and made the most of his opportunity when he did get the tiring Alexander to the mat, managing to secure mount and rain down heavy ground-and-pound punches and elbows to secure a TKO finish.
