Following last night’s UFC On ESPN 23 event the recipients of the evening’s $50,000 bonus awards were announced.
The main event battle between Jiri Prochazka and Dominick Reyes was an easy choice for ‘Fight Of The Night’ honors on this occasion.
As always, Prochazka led the dance and it wasn’t long before he had Reyes firmly on the back foot after giving him a taste of his fight-ending power. However, to his credit, Reyes always showed a willingness to counter, even while coming under heavy fire.
That led to some thrilling exchanges and while Prochazka clearly had the better of it, both fighters had moments when they appeared to be rocked. Reyes best moment occurred in the second round when he wobbled Prochazka with a left hand and then took him to the mat looking for a guillotine submission finish.
However, Prochazka managed to get out of that, survive eating an upkick and then not long after the fight returned to the feet he produced a moment of magic as he threw a thunderous elbow that didn’t connect, only to then follow it up with a spinning elbow that landed flush to the face of Reyes, resulting in him falling face-first onto the canvas unconscious for a stunning KO finish.
That was Prochazka’s 25th finish due to strikes in 28 career victories and could well turbo-charge his title ambitions, as evidenced by the fact that the UFC also saw fit to give one of the two ‘Performance Of The Night’ bonuses as well, meaning that in total he pocketed an extra $100,000 in bonus money.
The other performance bonus went to co-main event winner Giga Chikadze, who finished Cub Swanson in just 63 seconds with a perfectly placed liver kick to extend his UFC record to a perfect 6-0.
