Following yesterday’s UFC On ABC 6 event in Saudi Arabia the recipients of the evening’s $50,000 bonus awards were announced.
Four fighters earned ‘Performance Of The Night’ bonuses this time around, including main event winner Robert Whittaker. ‘The Reaper’ didn’t give late replacement Iskram Aliskerov any time to show what he could do as he immediately put him on the back foot with early offense – a strategy that soon paid off when he left his opponent on jelly legs after a big right hand, then floored him with an uppercut and followed up with a few more punches to seal a KO finish at the 1.49min mark.
Shara Magomedov was also well worth a performance bonus after he repeatedly foiled short-notice replacement Antonio Trocoli’s attempts to take him down, while punishing him with his agile, dynamic kicking game to all levels in the striking exchanges for much of the fight. Trocoli showed toughness to keep going, but in the third round he finally wilted after a takedown attempt failed when Magomedov greeted him with a knee to the head. Magomedov then turned up the heat with big punches and finally sat him down with a left hand to claim a knockout victory at 2.27mins of the third round.
Volkan Oezdemir also earned a performance bonus after he demolished Johnny Walker in less than a half a round. Oezdemir found his range early in this fight and put Walker down with a left hook. Walker got back up, but was quickly hurt again by another left hook, with an uppercut then collapsing him to the canvas. Before the ref could end the fight Oezdemir landed one final brutal blow to his grounded opponent at 2.28mins of the opening round that knocked him out cold for quite some time.
The final performance bonus went to yet another short-notice fighter, the debuting Felipe Lima, who managed to find his second-wind in the final round against Muhammad Naimov, reversing a takedown attempt and then getting to the back before sinking in a rear-naked choke finish.
