Following last night’s UFC On ESPN 66 event the recipients of the evening’s $50,000 bonus awards were announced.
Earning ‘Fight Of The Night’ honors was a hard-hitting main card battle between Randy Brown and Nicolas Dalby that ended in a 2nd round KO finish for ‘Rude Boy’.
Brown broke Dalby’s nose in the opening round with a power punch down the pipe, but his opponent showed his customary toughness to fight on regardless and was able to drop Brown later in the round. The start of the second round was competitive, but then Brown buckled Dalby’s leg momentary with a right hook. Dalby decided his best defense was offense, but that cost him as he pressed forward only to be caught by a clean right hook that sent him crashing face-first onto the canvas for the first KO loss of his career.
In the co-main event Mingyang Zhang earned a ‘Performance Of The Night’ bonus after ruthlessly sending Anthony Smith into retirement off a bloody first round TKO loss.
Zhang found a home for his strikes early and a hard elbow at close range opened up a cut on the top of Smith’s head that would soon leak down into his eye. Smith began to wilt from there while under continual pressure from Zhang’s aggressive striking, leading to a TKO stoppage after a barrage of ground-and-pound blows.
Also earning a performance bonus was the debuting Malcolm Wellmaker in the prelims, who countered a jab from Cameron Saaiman midway through the opening round with a hard right hook counter that floored him for a big KO victory.
