After Quarantillo-Carlyle Bonus Snub, Dana White Promises to ‘Kick Those Kids Something’

Spike Carlyle and @BillyQMMA delivered the night's wildest fight from bell to bell #UFCVegas pic.twitter.com/quxfiqECMu

— ESPN MMA (@espnmma) May 31, 2020

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The back-and-forth affair between Billy Quarantillo and Spike Carlyle at UFC on ESPN 9 was a popular choice for “Fight of the Night” for many observers.

When post-fight bonuses were announced, however, it was Brandon Royval vs. Tim Elliott that received those honors. Many in the MMA community expressed their surprise and disappointment in the aftermath, and word quickly got back to Dana White at Saturday’s post-fight press conference.

“We had a hard time back there tonight, which is always good when it’s a hard time,” White said at Saturday’s post-fight press conference. “But I hate seeing some of these kids get [snubbed]….you know. We’ll figure it out. I’ll give them something.”

In a bout that featured numerous entertaining grappling exchanges, Quarantillo weathered a furious start from the hard-charging Carlyle to take control down the stretch and win a closely-contested unanimous decision at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. For Quarantillo, there was a little bit of uncertainty when the scorecards were announced, but he felt confident he had done enough to get the nod.

“Based on damage, I felt confident. I felt like, if it wasn’t based on rounds, I knew that I beat him up more than he beat me up,” Quarantillo said after his victory. “I almost finished him a couple of times; I had a tight choke in there. He didn’t really come close to finishing me. he punched me a few times pretty hard, but nothing I haven’t seen before.

“Round by round, you just never know what they are going to look at. Are they looking at him being on top, or are they looking at me throwing up submissions? You never know with judges; that’s why I hate leaving it in the hands of the judges. ‘No judges needed’ is my moniker. Next time, I’m going to look for the finish even more and me and my coaches will go home and study this fight for a long time.”

White and matchmakers Sean Shelby and Mick Maynard collaborated to select post-fight bonus recipients at UFC on ESPN 9. While Quarantillo and Carlyle didn’t catch their eye initially, it appears the fighters will have a little extra compensation for their efforts.

“We blew it, huh? Is that what you’re telling us?” White said. “That bums me out because we all felt like, if you looked at that Tim Elliott fight with Royval, it was super technical. That fight was super technical. They were going back and forth. I don’t know. We felt like that was ‘Fight of the Night.’ The other dudes was an absolute, straight-up dogfight. The Carlyle fight was a straight dog fight. I’ll kick those kids something.”