The Ultimate Fighting Championship was live from New York City the second time.It was a memorable card as for the first time ever three titles changed hands on one night. When the action concluded, the promotion handed out $200,000 in bonus checks to five fighters for ‘Performance of the Night’ honors. The betting lines to wager on such props were made available at Several Bookmakers.
UFC 217 Bonuses went to…
TJ Dillashaw earns Performance of the Night (formerly, Knockout of the Night)
Dillashaw regained the bantamweight title winning his grudge match with Cody Garbrandt. Dillashaw came back from being dropped in the first round and nearly finished to knocking out the champion in the second round. It was a tremendous victory making Dillashaw a rare two time champion in a weightclass. If the UFC decides to run a rematch between the rivals remains to be seen.
Other performance-winning knockout(s):
Rose Namajunas earned Performance of the Night with a stunning upset victory over long time champion Joanna Jedrzejczyk to win the strawweight championship. The American strawweight dropped the champion in round one and followed with strikes forcing the champion to tap to strikes to win the title. Like Garbrandt, it remains to be seen if Jedrzejczyk will be given an immediate rematch.
Ovince St. Preux earned Performance of the Night with a tremendous head kick knockout of Corey Anderson on the preliminary card. St. Preux was struggling with the grappling game of Anderson, but was able to put an exclamation mark on the fight landing a left head kick to floor his opponent and get the victory. The win puts St. Preux right back into contender status in the light heavyweight division.
Ricardo Ramos earned Performance of the Night as he got the night started off with excitement as he landed a beautiful spinning elbow that floored Aiemann Zahabi in the third round of a very close fight to extend his UFC record to 2-0. Ramos’ knockout will likely make most top ten lists for knockout of the year.
Georges St. Pierre earns Performance of the Night honors (formerly, Submission of the Night)
The long time welterweight king moved up to middleweight and secured a third round rear naked choke to win the middleweight championship from Michael Bisping. After a four year layoff, St. Pierre went toe to toe with Bisping ultimately getting the win and moving into a rare class of fighter having won titles in two different weight classes.
Other noteworthy submission(s):
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