Following last night’s UFC On ESPN 53 event the recipients of the evening’s $50,000 bonus awards were announced.
Earning ‘Fight Of The Night’ honors was a preliminary card scrap between Jarno Errens and Steven Nguyen, with Errens generally getting the better of the action over three rounds, though his opponent never stopped trying to change the outcome, even when after being dropped midway through the fight.
Payton Talbott was an easy choice for ‘Performance Of The Night’ after confirming he’s a rising star with an impressive display of striking prowess against Cameron Saaiman.
Saaiman is a promising prospect in his own right, but Talbott dictated the stand-up action from the start and at times seemed like he couldn’t miss as landed big punches, elbows and a perfectly timed knee to the head that dropped his opponent. Saaiman showed off his durability to survive the first round, but right at the start of the 2nd round Talbott floored him again with a precision left hook and then blasted him with ground-and-pound to seal a TKO victory.
Also earning a performance bonus was Fernando Padilla, who was able to snatch on a standing d’arce choke in the first round of his fight with Luis Pajuelo to force a swift tapout.
And meanwhile, in a UFC first prelim fighter Andre Lima was awarded a $25,000 ‘Bite Of The Night’ bonus after his opponent Igor Severino literally bit him during their fight. Severino has since been axed from the UFC, while Lima went out and got a tattoo of the visible bite mark on his arm, which amused Dana White so much that he gave him the bonus money.
