Following last night’s UFC On ESPN 14 event on Fight Island the recipients of the evening’s $50,000 bonus awards were announced.
In a highly unusual departure from the norm, on this occasion the UFC opted to not only dish out six bonuses rather than the usual four, and they were all ‘Performance Of The Night’ awards.
Three of the awards were handed to fighters who were competing in the prelims, including Tom Aspinall, who ran through Jake Collier in just 45 seconds, hurting him with a big knee to the body and then a two-piece combo that sent him to the mat, with the TKO stoppage following quickly afterwards.
Six years after his last fight in the UFC, Jesse Ronson picked up a first round victory over Thomas Dalby after flooring him with a left hand and then finishing the job via a rear-naked choke submission.
Tanner Boser won his second fight in the space of a month in the second round after initially hurting Raphael Pessoa with a left hook and following up with ground and pound blows for the TKO finish.
Boser’s quick turnaround was somewhat overshadowed though by Khamzat Chimaev, who achieved a new modern-era UFC record by logging two victories in the space of 10 days after he showed off his dominant wrestling and relentless ground and pound against Rhys McKee to secure a first round TKO stoppage.
Meanwhile, Paul Craig secured his performance bonus after gladly accepting being put on his back early in the fight by Gadzhimurad Antigulov and then gradually cinching up a triangle choke submission to force a tapout.
Finally, also earning a bonus on the main card was Fabricio Werdum, who served up a reminder of how dangerous he is on the mat as he dragged Alexander Gustafsson into his world and then secured an armbar submission finish in the opening round.
