UFC 189 got off to a slow start with lackluster preliminary bouts, but the main card came with the fire.
Brad Pickett and Thomas Almeida started the main card with a fun and competitive first round. In the second frame Almeida put a stop to the fight with a flying knee. Gunner Nelson flattened and submitted Brandon Thatch in the second fight to get back in the win column in emphatic fashion.
Dennis Bermudez and Jeremy Stephens threw leather in the next bout, which ended with Stephens landing a knee that floored Bermudez. Stephens missed weight, and therefore he was not eligible for bonuses.
Then came the title fights.
Rory MacDonald failed to capture glory as Robbie Lawler TKO’d him in the fifth and final round of an astounding welterweight war. It was a battle that will be hard to top for Fight of the Year. And in the main event, Conor McGregor captured interim UFC gold by TKO’ing Chad Mendes at the tail end of the second frame.
With all that action, picking performance winners was going to be a challenge, but the UFC did it. Here are the winners of $50,000 in bonus money for their showings at UFC 189.
Performance of the Night—Thomas Almeida
The highly touted bantamweight prospect got off to a rough start, but he rebounded to claim a bonus.
Brad Pickett is a crafty veteran with well-rounded skills, and he gave it all to Almeida. The youngster struggled in the first round as Pickett connected time and again. Pickett dropped the Brazilian twice in the round. However, Almeida had some offense of his own as he briefly dropped Pickett as well.
In the second round, Almeida put an end to the fight. He landed a crisp straight, and then he followed it up with a flying knee that shut out the lights.
Pickett hit the canvas hard. John McCarthy was on his way to stop the fight, but Almeida had already peeled off as to not do anymore damage. Almeida is the real deal. A well-earned performance bonus.
Performance of the Night—Conor McGregor
The new Irish interim featherweight champion of the world picked up an extra $50,000 for his showing against Chad Mendes.
The newly crowned champion had to battle through some adversity, but he landed most of the significant blows. He was taken down multiple times, ate short elbows from Mendes and still got up to finish within the first two rounds.
He answered a lot of his critics, but he still showed holes in his game. All that aside, he delivered. He talked a big game and backed it all up inside the cage. He finished Mendes with his biggest weapon – the left hand. The win sets up the biggest fight in 145-pound history between McGregor and Jose Aldo at a date to be determined.
Fight of the Night—Robbie Lawler vs. Rory MacDonald
The UFC welterweight title fight no one was talking about delivered a potential Fight of the Year contender.
Lawler and MacDonald had a measured, but excellent, first round. It was a narrow round that could have gone either way. In the second round, Lawler started to take a little bit of control. He peppered MacDonald with a crisp jab and a straight left.
MacDonald came back in the third and fourth rounds. He had Lawler badly hurt and nearly finished, but the champion showed his resolve by not buckling. MacDonald worked his way into a decisive fifth round against the champion with his excellent showing in the previous two rounds.
Just one minute into the final frame, Lawler retained. A blistering left hand landed flush on an already broken nose of MacDonald. The challenger grabbed his nose and fell to the canvas, signaling he was finished. Lawler made a mess of MacDonald’s face, and the accumulation of strikes finally made it too painful to continue for MacDonald.
It was a phenomenally technical and brutal fight. It was the perfect blend. This fight is what high-level championship fights should strive to be, and the two warriors earned their performance bonuses on Saturday evening.
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