The Ultimate Fighter Nations Finale went down Wednesday night, and it was full of great fights and impressive finishes. It was a great surprise for fight fans, who did not hold the event in high regard coming into the night.
The event saw some significant happenings. Two Canadian fighters were crowned the newest Ultimate Fighter champions in Elias Theodorou and Chad Laprise. Not only that, but after a fun, back-and-forth fight in the main event, Tim Kennedy took a unanimous decision over the favored Michael Bisping.
From this fight card, we got two Performance of the Night winners and two Fight of the Night winners. Let’s recap those bonuses and examine their legitimacy.
Performance of the Night No. 1: Ryan Jimmo
Canada’s Ryan Jimmo was the only home countryman to win a bonus Wednesday night. Boy, did he earn it, too.
Jimmo, taking on gritty, late-notice brawler Sean O’Connell, found himself in a fight early, as O’Connell stood in there with the karate champion and threw leather. O’Connell landed some good shots of his own, showing he was worthy of this UFC bout.
Then it happened.
O’Connell stood in the pocket and kept throwing heat at Jimmo. However, Jimmo caught the Utah native clean with a nasty shot square in the mug and dazed O’Connell badly. A couple follow-up shots and the American was out cold.
Jimmo showed that he has power and is not always a grinder. That nasty KO earned him a nice $50,000 bonus that he can now use to get dance lessons that will allow him to add more moves to his robot arsenal.
Performance of the Night No. 2: KJ Noons
If KJ Noons didn’t get a bonus tonight, the streets would have been filled with rioters demanding he get paid. Okay, maybe not that extreme, but it would have been erroneous.
Noons took on Sam Stout in a bout that was made a welterweight fight a few days out from fight night. Perhaps Noons used that lack of weight-cutting to eat something extra-extra, as he uncorked a monster of a punch that sent Stout into night-night land.
Stout doesn’t get knocked out. However, he did Wednesday night. He was so out of it that when he came to, he shot a takedown on the ref and tried putting him in a guillotine choke.
That’s how wicked the knockout was. Noons deserves every penny of that $50,000.
Fight of the Night: Dustin Poirier vs. Akira Corassani
Coming into Wednesday night, if you told me Dustin Poirier-Akira Corassani would have been the best fight of the night, I would have laughed in your face, spit in your beer and ridiculed you to tears.
Then, you would have returned the favor after watching Wednesday’s brawl between the two and proven me wrong.
Poirier and Corassani has a crazy, back-and-forth fight for the first five minutes. The Swede hurt the American and the American hurt the Swede.
Eventually, Poirier would finish Corassani in the second round, but the Swede gave him a fight. It was an awesome fight at that.
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