Four earn UFC 99 bonuses
The UFC's debut in Germany for Saturday's UFC 99 brought four fighters $60,000 bonuses for going the extra mile in their fights:
- Fight of the Night: Rich Frankin vs. Wanderlei Silva
- Knockout of the Night: Mike Swick (over Ben Saunders)
- Submission of the Night: Terry Etim (over Justin Bucholz)
Cro Cop splits for DREAM, infuriates Dana White
The biggest controversy coming out of a relatively slow event for news is circling around a guy that originally left the UFC, came back for a fight and supposedly a run for the UFC Heavyweight title - that being Mirko Cro Cop.
UFC President Dana White had made a rare verbal deal with Cro Cop to fight Saturday against Mustapha Al-turk after reportedly being offered Cain Velasquez and others that he turned down. The idea was that Cro Cop would fight twice more, but several news outlets reported yesterday that Cro Cop has signed a three-fight deal with Japanese promotion DREAM - something White was livid at.
Two White quotes from Yahoo's Kevin Iole's notebook:
“Isn’t that a dirty [expletive] thing to do? He [expletived] me. The first time in the history of the company I do one over the phone. He promised me a three-fight deal and he [expletived] me He didn’t keep his word." He talked about honor and all this other [expletive] and he [expletived] me.
"He fed me this bull [expletive] about wanting to take a run for the title, and what I think he did was, he went out and did this. He turned down every other [expletive] fighter I offered him, because I needed him to fight Cain. He didn’t just poke Al-Turk; he poked me, too."
Cro Cop defeated Al-turk via second round TKO, enabled by an accidental eye poke that ref Dan Miragliotta missed. He didn't attend the post-fight press conference and yet to comment on the situation.
Quick UFC 99 results from the main card
- Rich Frankin def. Wanderlei Silva via unanimous decision
- Cain Velasquez def. Cheick Kongo def. unanimous decision
- Mirko Cro Cop def. Mustapha Al-turk via TKO (punches) in the first round
- Mike Swick def. Ben Saunders via TKO (strikes) in the second round
- Spencer Fisher def. Caol Uno via unanimous decision
- Dan Hardy def. Marcus Davis via split decision
Attendance and live gate
The event brought in 12,800 (20k seats at the Lanxess Arena) for a total of $1.3 million.
Josh Nason—josh [at] ropesringandcage [dot com] - has published MMA, wrestling and boxing blog Ropes, Ring and Cage.com since 2007 and has been a contributor to Fight Magazine since January 2009 and Bleacher Report since 2008.
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