UFC Awards “Fight of the Night” Bonuses to Sanchez, Guida, Lytle, Burns, Stevenson, and Diaz
The UFC awarded a surprising-but-deserved three “Fight of the Night” awards on Saturday to Diego Sanchez and Clay Guida, Chris Lytle and Kevin Burns, and Joe Stevenson and Nate Diaz for their entertaining performaces at The Ultimate Fighter 9 Finale, which took place at The Pearl in Las Vegas and aired live on Spike TV.
Sanchez edged Guida by split decision in the evening’s main event following a standup war that saw Sanchez nearly finish Guida early in the opening frame only to have The Carpenter fight his way back into the fight with ground and pound in the second and third rounds. Ultimately it was Sanchez’s multiple near finishes and cut-opening elbows from his back that earned him split decision victory.
Lytle and Burns also engaged in a standup brawl that saw Burns rock Lytle late in round one only to have Lytle survive to open up a deep gash that sent blood streaming early in the third. The cut may have been the deciding factor in the bout as Lytle was awarded the unanimous decision win.
Stevenson put his recent training with Greg Jackson on full display in a technical tussle with Diaz, as “Daddy” battered Diaz on the feet and was constantly applying pressure on the ground en route to unanimous decision victory.
All six “Fight of the Night” winners, along with Jason Dent who earned “Submission of the Night” and Tomasz Drwal who was awarded “Knockout of the Night”, received $25,000 bonuses.
Click here to read MMAFrenzy.com’s TUF 9 Finale recap and official results.
[Pictured: Joe Stevenson]
Tags: Chris Lytle, Clay Guida, Diego Sanchez, Jason Dent, Joe Stevenson, Kevin Burns, Nate Diaz, Tomasz Drwal
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Thats awesome Dana! Well deserved
Man, I wish he would pay the fighters what they deserve…
They should all go to Affliction to get paid more.
I always love to see those bonuses paid out, which I suppose are better than nothing.
I know Dana White isn’t always the most popular figure in MMA, but at least he’s doing something to get a bit more cash into the hands of the men building this sport.
Still and all, I would love to see a 25% pay increase across the board for talent. That sounds about right to me, in terms of being fair to the fighters and not setting in motion something that could hurt the UFC financially…
Don’t they get a chance to negotiate. I’m assuming they sign the contracts and are aware of how much they are going to receive with a chance for bonus.
That is awesome, nice that they rewarded all the great fights tonight..
Im wondering if this might be a growing trend with the UFC, or just a one time thing. Cause there have been many cases where their should have been 2 KO’s of the night.
man i hate it i fell a sleep durin lytles fight then i woke up during the decision on sanchez fight so i missed it and my dad said it was amazing
that must have been a real ‘nightmare’ to miss that fight. I don’t know how Diego ‘Nightmare’ Sanchez will feel about you sleeping through his main event bout.
K I can’t think of any more clever ways to say nightmare anymore…
Every Guida fight is worth the 44.95, but last night was free and the card was amazing! That could be fight of the year. Awesome.
It’s been said before but bears repeating, in that Guida if he maintains his current mindset towards fighting will always have a spot with the UFC, and is always worth “the price of admission” as they used to say. Win or lose the guy is all in, every fight, and probably burns more energy in the staredown than some guys do in an entire round…
As an aside, I didn’t consider the Stevenson-Diaz fight as worthy of fight of the night. Definitely agree with the other two though.
i felt the same
Yea I agree, in order for a fight to be awarded fight of the night, I would of thought that both fighters need to go all out.
I think it deserved fight of the night for the technical ground work, both guys were fighting for position, and both guys attempted submissions. I would take it as fight of the night over Lytle v. Burns.
Guida vs. sanchez fight of the year. the beginning was amazing!
nice stevenson fight he sshould of tried fighting sanchez that way instead of just standing
i was really impressed by guida in that fight
Well deserved bonuses dude!
Sanchez vs Guida is by far the best main event match i’ve seen all year. Maybe fight of the year so far. I’m glad that the other deserving fights were awarded as well. This was truly an exciting event that lived up to the hype,especially Sanchez-Guida.
I don’t think i’ve ever seen Guida take a beating like that, especialy in the first round. I honestly thought that Sanchez was going to finish Guida, but Guida is a tough motherfu*ker and always is game for anything, but still Diego Sanchez looked better than he ever has and made a huge statement to the rest of that division that he’s coming!. I still don’t feel that he deserves a title shot after just two wins at 155,but he has been on a winning streak in his past 4 or 5 fights so that might be able to put him next in line for a shot at the title, but i still feel he should fight anotter contender to get a shot, but if he does get a shot at the title, i’m all for it because he would make a great matchup against Penn, and a rematch between him and Ken-Flo would be awesome.
I have to say that this was a great night of fights and only keeps helping the sport and other sports fans know why this is the fastest growing sport in the world and helps peope realize why fans like myself love and this sport and it’s amazing fighters who put it all on the line. Fu*king awesome night of fights!
Great card, free of not. I’m glad the UFC isn’t limiting themselves to 1 bonus of each type. Great fights deserve recognition. I do agree though with dbiz, the Joe Daddy/Nate fight was good, but not on par with Diego/Guida.
You’re right that Joe v. Nate wasn’t on par with Guida v. Sanchez, but I think it was at least as good, if not better than Lytle v. Burns.
Perhaps. I think that Burns and Lytle worked a little extra harder and left nothing behind. Or maybe my memory was just a bit blurry from the combination of a massive b-day hangover and Tylenol 3s (bad combo by the way; shoulda gone the Advil route). I’ll need to catch the repeat.
great call by Zuffa and giving all 6 fighters a bonus.
AGREED!
The bonus is what im talking about! Sorry
Lights-Out is back!!!
I dont think he went anywhere. A split decision loss to Davis is nothing to be ashamed of. That war he won against Paul Taylor was awesome, and being stuck underneath Koschek for three rounds isnt un-heard of. Plus I had him winning the fight against Thiago Alves until the doctor called the fight on what wasnt even a bad cut. With the fights he puts on combined with the fact that he will beat anybody who isnt a top ten WW in the UFC, I think Chris is going to be sticking around for awhile.