The flying knee was just the appetizer for the KO #UFCRochester pic.twitter.com/GVpoC9w4hf
— ESPN MMA (@espnmma) May 18, 2019
Ladd and Eubanks received “Fight of the Night” honors for their preliminary bantamweight scrap. Ladd relied on takedowns, ground-and-pound and her submission game to earn a hard-fought unanimous verdict over the former flyweight contender. Eubanks, meanwhile, did her best work on the feet, but it wasn’t enough to prevent her from falling to 0-2 against Ladd.
Elsewhere, Pereira made the most of his Octagon debut, earning a “Performance of the Night” award for his first-round knockout of Danny Roberts in a preliminary welterweight duel. The Scorpion Fighting System product put Roberts away with a flying knee and a right hand at the 1:47 mark of the period.
Finally, former Dana White’s Tuesday Night Contender Series competitor Grant Dawson captured the evening’s other “Performance of the Night” bonus thanks to a second-round submission of the previously unbeaten Michael Trizano in a preliminary featherweight contest. Dawson was able to take Trizano down, move to full mount and then transition to his foe’s back before earning the tapout with a rear-naked choke 2:27 into round two.