Both men battled through adversity on their
ways to victory!POTN bonuses handed out to @BruceLeeroyGlow
& @MarvinVettori.
#UFCVegas41 pic.twitter.com/OrH0Eq6QWm— UFC (@ufc)
October 24, 2021
Marvin
Vettori accepted the challenge of moving up a weight class to
fight Paulo Costa
at
UFC Fight Night 196, and it paid off handsomely for “The
Italian Dream.”
Vettori received a $50,000 “Performance of the Night” check for a
unanimous decision victory over Costa in Saturday’s headliner at
the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. The bout was originally scheduled to be
contested at 185 pounds until Costa revealed that he wouldn’t be
able to make weight, so it was then changed to a 205-pound bout.
Vettori took the change in stride, as he set a light heayweight
record with 190 significant strikes landed in the five-round
affair.
Elsewhere, Alex
Caceres pocketed a $50,000 “Performance of the Night” award for
a first-round submission of Seung Woo
Choi in a featured featherweight scrap. After a difficult
opening round in which he was rocked by a right hand and an illegal
knee, Caceres rebounded to submit Choi with a rear-naked choke at
the 3:31 mark of Round 2.
Finally, Gregory
Rodrigues and Jun Young Park
earned “Fight of the Night” honors and $50,000 apiece for their
middleweight brawl on the preliminary card. Rodrigues rallied from
the brink of defeat in Round 2, as he shook off a salvo of punches
from his foe to push Park into the fence with an onslaught of his
own before sealing the victory with an uppercut at the 3:13 mark of
the period.