Dan Henderson, Maurico “Shogun” Rua, Cung Le and Wanderlei Silva were all awarded bonuses for the honor of Fight of the Night Saturday at UFC 139 in San Jose.
Rarely handed out to more than one fight, UFC president Dana White said he had no choice but to call the two co-headlining bouts the Fight of the Night at UFC 139. Each post-fight bonus winner received an extra $70,000.
Henderson (29-8) won a five-round battle for the ages, edging out Rua (20-6) on scores of 48-47 across the board.
In middleweight action between two dangerous strikers, Silva (34-11-1) fought back from a difficult first round to spoil Le (7-2)’s UFC debut with brutal knees and punches to bring on the referee stoppage in the second.
Michael McDonald (14-1) earned Knockout of the Night with an explosive first-round finish over Alex Soto (6-1-1). The 20-year-old bantamweight needed only 56 seconds to score his third UFC win.
Urijah Faber (26-5) took home Submission of the Night for his guillotine choke over Brian Bowles (10-2). With the win, Faber earns a rematch with bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz.
The UFC’s debut at the HP Pavilion drew an attendance of 13,173 for a gate of $1.268 million, according to White.
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