Following last night’s UFC On ESPN 16 event on Fight Island the recipients of the evening’s $50,000 bonus awards were announced.
On this occasion the UFC opted to dispense with a ‘Fight Of The Night’ award and instead went with four ‘Performance Of The Night’ bonuses instead.
Among the performance winners was deservedly Germaine de Randamie, whose striking looked sharp as always against Julianna Pena, but really impressed by showing off new strings to her bow as she caught her opponent in a Von Flue choke at one stage and then later in the fight slickly locked in a guillotine choke that sent ‘The Venezuelan Vixen’ to sleep.
Also earning a performance bonus was Kyler Phillips who also showed well rounded skills as he threatened with a versatile arsenal of strikes on the feet, but made his biggest impact on the mat, where he appeared to have late replacement Cameron Else hurt late in the first round with ground and pound, while early in the second he again got him down and went to work with a barrage of blows to seal the TKO stoppage.
There had been a bit of a buzz surrounding the undefeated Dusko Todorovic heading into his UFC debut against Dequan Townsend and he secured his first victory in the Octagon inside the distance after initially trading big strikes with his opponent on the feet, but then utilizing his wrestling to pave the way for a second round ground and pound TKO stoppage.
The final performance bonus was handed to prelim fighter Luigi Vendramini who rocked his opponent Jessin Ayari with a head kick early in the fight and then followed up with more strikes for a 72 second TKO finish.
