Tyron Woodley and Jessica Andrade were among the bonus winners at UFC 228, which had more than a few candidates to choose from.
There are nights where handing out UFC bonuses feels like an easy job. A couple of fighters stand out. One fight is entertaining far beyond the rest of the pack. Then there are nights like UFC 228 in Dallas on Saturday. Nights where it feels like eight or nine bonuses could be handed out.
Frank Camacho and Geoff Neal put on a war, with Neal making an emphatic statement that he has arrived in the welterweight division. Jim Miller picked up an impressive submission win in his record-setting 30th trip to the octagon. And both Aljamain Sterling and Zabit Magomedsharipov secured knee bar submission wins — from back mount. A submission pulled off just once prior to UFC 228.
Those, mind you, were the fighters who did not earn bonuses at UFC 228. Which tells you how deep the card turned out to be. Instead, it was champion Tyron Woodley earning one of the two Performance of the Night bonuses. Woodley finished Darren Till via D’Arce choke, defending his welterweight title for the first time in over a year.
The other Performance bonus went to Jessica Andrade, who knocked out fellow former title challenger Karolina Kowalkiewicz in under two minutes. The KO was the culmination of an all-out assault, and a statement victory for Andrade.
Fight of the Night, meanwhile, went to Irena Aldana vs. Lucie Pudilova, a bloody war that appeared on the Fight Pass preliminary card. Aldana picked up the split decision win in that one.
All four fighters will earn an extra $50,000 in bonus money.
