UFC 203 performance bonuses: Stipe Miocic defends heavyweight belt
UFC 203 saw heavyweight giants Stipe Miocic and Alistair Overeem go at it in the main event, producing a Fight of the Night Performance bonus in their battle for the heavyweight title.
It’s pretty safe to say that UFC 203 was strange affair. We saw a fighters calling timeouts, we saw post fight scuffles, and we finally got the answer to the burning question ‘Can CM punk fight?’ (a pretty definitive no).
Most importantly though, we saw some brilliant athletic performances inside the octagon, the four best of which earning Performance Bonus honours and the cool $50,000 to go with it.
In the main event, the sold-out Cleveland crowd was treated to a Fight of the Night showing as home town hero Stipe Miocic got the better of the towering Dutchman Alistair Overeem in a cracking back and forth fight for the Heavyweight title.
Mandatory Credit: John David Mercer-USA TODAY Sports
Miocic had the home crowd on edge in the opening minutes of the fight when a straight right from Overeem sent him to the canvas and was immediately followed up with a tight guillotine attempt.
Stipe gritted his way through the submission attempt though, and went on to put the pressure back on Overeem on the feet. Both men looked rocked on numerous occasions throughout the fight, but ultimately, Miocic’s wrestling gave him the edge to get over the line.
Eventually he found a takedown, and landed some vicious ground-and-pound from inside The Reem’s guard to draw the TKO stoppage at 4:27 of the first round; further solidifying himself as The Baddest Man on the Planet and landing both men the $50k Fight of the Night bonus.
Earlier in the evening, Jessica Andrade opened up the show for the main card with a first round submission win over Joanne Calderwood, netting her own $50,000 bonus for a Performance of the Night.
Andrade put in arguably one of the best performances of her career as she outstruck Calderwood almost 2:1 and dominated the ground on the way to a guillotine submission 4:38 into the very first round.
The final Performance of the Night bonus went to Yancy Meideros for his feature Fight Pass Prelim fight against Sean Spencer.
Meideros impressed in his welterweight debut, dropping Spencer with a head kick before swarming him on the ground, eventually claiming the win – and his Performance of the Night bonus – with a rear-naked choke submission 0:49 into the second round.
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