Last night, the UFC touched down in sunny Sao Paulo, Brazil with its 100th Fight Night card.
While the card lacked any real back-and-forth wars (Bellator had us covered in that regard) it did produce some fantastic finishes. As such, the UFC elected not to dish out a Fight of the Night bonus, and award two extra Performance of the Night bonuses instead.
The first of the card’s four Performance of the Night bonuses went to Sao Paulo’s own Thomas Almeida. Almeida appeared in the evening’s co-main event opposite California’s Albert Morales, a relative unknown who had yet to taste victory in the UFC. Though Morales surprised by landing some meaningful offense in the first round, he ultimately went the way of 16 of Almeida’s previous opponents, succumbing to a hellacious onslaught of strikes in the second round. With this knockout win, Almeida returned to the win column after his first career loss, which was doled out by Cody Garbrandt earlier this year.
Sao Paulo’s second Performance of the Night bonus went to TUF Brazil 1 winner Cezar “Mutante” Ferreira, who wrapped up the undercard with a nasty submission defeat of Jack Hermansson. Ferreira earned the tap with a second-round arm-triangle choke that had Hermansson flailing in discomfort like a fish on land. With the submission win, the Brazilian extended his win-streak to three.
The third Performance of the Night bonus was awarded to Gadzhimurad Antigulov, the latest Dagestan native to make a splash in the UFC. Antigulov earned his $50k bonus with a 67-second submission defeat of Brazil’s Marcos Rogerio de Lima. He earned the tap with the guillotine choke, making a successful UFC debut in the process.
The final of Sao Paulo’s Performance of the Night checks went to Pedrho Munoz, who won big on the Fight Pass Prelims by tapping former flyweight Justin Scoggins with a second-round Guillotine. The win, which is Munhoz’s second in a row via guillotine, gave him another big push up the bantamweight rankings.
Though the UFC’s latest trip to Sao Paulo didn’t produce any fight of the year candidates, its many finishes made it an exciting card all the same. The question is, did Ryan Bader deserve a performance bonus for his three-round decimation of Antonio Rogerio Nogueira? Let us know what you think, PENN Nation!