UFC 327 bonuses: $200K for Hokit. Cub Swanson’s retirement KO? Meh.
The more obnoxious, the better the UFC sometimes seems to think. And that certainly applies oftentimes to the post-fight bonus awards.
At this point, the members of the UFC brass who decide the post-fight bonuses are basically trolling people. There’s little other explanation for it. Rather than publicly reward a UFC Hall of Famer and his first-round knockout in his retirement fight in front of his wife and kids, the UFC instead chose to fall victim to the lure of the attention economy and gave a double bonus to the fighter who drew the most attention during the week — largely for his WWE-like character-driven schtick.
Josh Hokit (9-0 MMA, 3-0 UFC) and Curtis Blaydes (19-6 MMA, 14-6 UFC) had an absolute all-timer that was worthy of Fight of the Night — and some are going to make the case in December for it as Fight of the Year, no doubt. And their $100K each was deserved, without question. But Hokit got an extra $100,000 for Performance of the Night, and when the other performance bonus rightly went to Carlos Ulberg (14-1 MMA, 10-1 UFC) for his rally on virtually one leg to KO Jiri Prochazka (32-6-1 MMA, 6-3 UFC) for the light heavyweight title in the main event, it meant other finishes were left with just $25,000 each thanks to Hokit’s double dip.
And that included Cub Swanson (31-14 MMA, 16-10 UFC) and his first-round KO of Nate Landwehr (18-8 MMA, 5-6 UFC), which appeared to be a no-brainer for an emotional $100,000 send-off from the UFC. Instead, Swanson, a fighter who likely never would dream of the ridiculous whoring for attention antics done by Hokit, merely gets a finish bonus. Check out the bonuses from Kaseya Center in Miami below, and the five other fighters who got $25,000 extra checks for finishes that weren’t bonus-winners.
Fight of the Night: Josh Hokit, Curtis Blaydes ($100,000 each) Josh Hokit (9-0 MMA, 3-0 UFC) and Curtis Blaydes (19-6 MMA, 14-6 UFC) slugged it out for 15 minutes in a truly back-and-forth and entertaining fight. The Fight of the Night honor was worthy, without question. Performance of the Night: Carlos Ulberg ($100,000) Carlos Ulberg (14-1 MMA, 10-1 UFC) blew out his knee, it appeared, early against Jiri Prochazka (32-6-1 MMA, 6-3 UFC).
Continue to the original source for the full article.