Glover Teixeira, Michael Chiesa, Elizeu Zaleski dos Santos, and Omari Akhmedov each earned $50,000 bonuses out of Saturday’s UFC on Fox 19 event from Tampa, Fla., the UFC announced after the event.
Teixeira took out Rashad Evans in the main event, dropping him with a left hook to the jaw and putting him out cold with a follow up right hand. The victory, his third straight, earned him a “Performance of the Night” award, and served to launch him right back into the conversation as a potential contender at 205 lbs.
Chiesa’s win was perhaps even more impressive, coming in the second round over Beneil Dariush to take his own “Performance of the Night” award. The Ultimate Fighter winner came in as the underdog, and lost the first round, but after getting Dariush to the ground in the second, he took his back, locked on a choke, held on as Dariush stood, and forced the submission. It was a fantastic performance against a top ten competitor.
Dos Santos and Akhmedov had a very fun fight to kick off the event on UFC Fight Pass, and they were rewarded with the “Fight of the Night” award. It was a back and forth grappling affair in the first two rounds, with several significant transitions and counters on the ground, and then dos Santos took over on the feet in the third. Akhmedov refused to go down despite taking strike after strike, and the referee finally stopped things after a series of brutal unanswered knees.
[Glover Teixeira art by Grant Gould (c) MMATorch.com]
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