Photo by Esther Lin for MMA Fighting.
UFC president Dana White announced the winners of the UFC 143 Fight Night bonuses at the post-fight press conference. Each winner receives $65,000 for his troubles.
The winners are:
Welterweight Thompson knocked out Dan Stittgen with a beautiful lead leg round house kick to the head that started out as a faked kick to the legs and followed up a 1-2 punching combination. It was only one of two TKOs on the card, the other being Matt Brown's finish of Chris Cope.
Dustin Poirier finished Max Holloway with a terrifying triangle choke/arm bar from the mount. It was also one of only two qualifying fights on the card, the other being Ed Herman's rear naked choke of Clifford Starks.
Werdum and Nelson put on a back-and-forth brawl that saw lots of blood spilled, mostly by Nelson. There were a number of hard fought decisions on the card but only Rafael Natal's win over Micheal Kuiper (which saw Natal survive a near KO to get a dominant win), Josh Koscheck's come from behind win over Michael Pierce, and the headlining Carlos Condit vs. Nick Diaz bout were serious contenders for FON.
SBN coverage of UFC 143: Diaz vs. Condit
0 recs | 16 comments
I’m glad I’m not the only one who enjoyed the Koscheck/Pierce fight. I wish Fitch/Hendricks had gone down like that.
crazybones - February 5, 2012
I enjoyed pierce/Kos as well…felt pierce out fought him too
Afrotikiman - February 5, 2012 via mobile
Stittgen vs Cope on shark fights!!!
Afrotikiman - February 5, 2012 via mobile
Cool picture... Diaz lost the fight. Get over it people.
OXYGENgone - February 5, 2012
KO of the night and submission of the night were pretty obvious.
But Fight of the Night wasn’t apparent. There wasn’t some war with two guys exchanging blows or rolling around on the ground, so I guess Nelson-Werdrum was a good choice. But just shows that there weren’t any real wars on the card.
I enjoyed the card, but we didn’t get an insane fight like we do on a lot of cards.
fbihop - February 5, 2012
Man....
Tonley - February 5, 2012
MMA Sup
Haven’t seen that guy around these parts in quite some time.
ElliotMatheny - February 5, 2012
this thompson kid
looks like one to watch out for, that ko was beautiful, a white karate kid oh yeah!
MegaReem - February 5, 2012
I’m interested to see how he handles getting taken down or when facing another good striker.
Ak.Death - February 5, 2012
Wasn't the karate kid already white in the first place?
And anyways, what does the kid’s ethnicity have to do with anything? Weird comment.
PlutoCps - February 5, 2012
dana was so pissed he gave bc and werdum FON
turboman - February 5, 2012
the Diaz Condit fight was a robbery! More specifically it was a robbery of Dana whites wallet in lost PPV sales that is now that Diaz/GSP isnt happening lol.
Condit fought smart and won nothing really more to say
terzergoss - February 5, 2012
Glad Roy Nelson got some sort of reward for his efforts, his bravery and toughness were well beyond the call of duty last night.
Condit is one of the sports legitimate good guys, but in all honesty he made me think of Kalib Starnes at times during that fight.
Apparently Mike Goldberg really pissed of Dana White postfight by running around backstage with no shirt on. I really hope he goes, he seems to have no more knowledge about MMA than he did when he started about 17 years ago.
sheikybaby - February 5, 2012
Condit-Diaz was the clear FON to me. I enjoyed Werdum-Nelson as well but this feels like a Dana White indictment of Condit’s gameplan. Condit was awesome and everyone mad at him for not trading with Diaz can sit on it.
jpayne - February 5, 2012 via mobile
Stephen Thomson
He is going to have a lot of highlight reel knockouts. He is so quick on his feet. I think he is going to hard to take down for the wrestlers in the division. His style is similar to Machida, but his striking is at another level. Just check out his Kickboxing career……ridiculous.
rationalthought2012 - February 5, 2012
I don't get all the comments that say the FOTN was some sort of subtle criticism.
IMO the main was a good fight, but not great, regardless of the merits of the decision itself. BC and Werdum was also a good fight and personally I actually enjoyed watching it more. Also, it’s pretty rare and pretty great that a decision between two heavyweights can be considered as a candidate for FOTN, much less win it.
PlutoCps - February 5, 2012
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