Sean
Strickland and Dricus Du
Plessis delivered a banger of a title fight in the
UFC 297 headliner at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto.
The two will walk home with an extra $50,000 each for going to war
in their middleweight title clash, which earned “Fight of the
Night” honors. Strickland’s jab looked on point from the very
beginning, while du Plessis struggled to find his footing in the
opening round. However, the South African challenger started making
adjustments as the fight progressed, putting the champ on his
backfoot with his signature pace and volume. While Strickland was
leaking near the left eye by the end of the fight, du Plessis’ left
eye was almost closed. “Stillknocks” eventually edged out a
closely-contested split decision to be crowned the new UFC
middleweight champ.
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UFC 297 only saw two performance bonuses being handed out, with
Canadian women winning both.
Jasmine
Jasudavicius earned a $50,000 bonus for a record-breaking
beatdown of Priscila
Cachoeira. Jasudavicius took Cachoeira down with ease in every
round and essentially unleashed ground and pound for 14 minutes
before submitting the Brazilian with an anaconda choke. The
34-year-old also earned 30% of Cachoeira’s fight purse as “Zombie
Girl” forced a last-minute change in weight class after failing to
make weight.
Gillian
Robertson received a $50,000 check for her shutout victory over
Polyana
Viana, which also marked the only other win of the night for
Canada. Robertson took Viana down early on, threatening submissions
throughout Round 1 before ground and pounding her way to a dominant
win in the second frame.