UFC 297 Bonuses: Sean Strickland, Dricus du Plessis Deliver Fight of the Night

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.

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.