18 Moments That Deserved "Of the Night" Honors

Ever since UFC 70, the Zuffa brass has been publicly recognizing and rewarding exciting fights and finishes with Fight Night Awards. These awards include Fight of the Night, KO of the Night and Submission of the Night, alongside the rarely seen “get those horrifying trunks off TV as soon as possible” of the Night.

Award value has ranged from $30,000 all the way up to $129,000. While some may feel that the UFC doesn’t financially take care of their talent the way that they should (I’m looking at you, Ken Shamrock), Fight Night Awards and locker room bonuses commonly make up a huge portion of fighter income.

For example, preliminary card fighter Pablo Garza scored the coveted $129,000 bonus for his incredible flying armbar submission of Yves Jaboulin at UFC 129. While salaries were not disclosed for UFC 129, the disclosed salary for Garza's previous fight was $4,000 with a $4,000 win bonus.

I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that Dana White and the boys from Zuffa have taken good care of every single fighter on this list for these spectacular performances, but when you look at some of these moments and realize that they were not officially branded with “of the night” honors, it seems a bit peculiar.

Criteria: What Deserves an Award

There are good reasons to award certain fighters in situations where they may not have had the very best fight, submission or KO of the night. Perhaps they accomplished a task that has been historically impossible, such as Frank Mir submitting Big Nog or Johny Hendricks KOing Jon Fitch.

That being said, let’s look at some of the things we are looking for when pointing out something that should have been a Fight Night winner:

- Submission of the Night: A technically-difficult submission to perform; a submission performed after an incredible series of events; the ease with which the submission was attained; a submission performed after being terribly hurt.

- Knockout of the Night: Opponent ended up completely unconscious; Visually appealing KO that causes jaws to drop; KO comes out of nowhere.

- Fight of the Night: A back-and-forth battle; a very close fight that was rarely or never dull; bouts that go multiple rounds; a finish that comes by a fighter being dominated.

Disclaimers

Disclaimer: Unless I directly state it on a slide, I do not think that any of these fights should replace the announced award winner(s). I am simply suggesting that these fights should have also been given recognition.

Before I get arguments about multiple winners in a category not being acceptable, I should point out that there have been multiple instances of this—notably three Fight of the Night awards at TUF 9 Finale, three KO of the Night awards at UFC on Versus 1, and two Submission of the Night awards at UFC Fight Night 22.

Disclaimer: I did not include fights that took place before UFC 70, when Fight Night Awards were given out. That list would have included way too many bouts. 

Chris Lytle vs. Matt Brown

UFC 116 was an epic night of fights for MMA fans. We saw the tremendous battle between Shane Carwin and Brock Lesnar, multiple fight of the year nominees, with Chris Leben taking on Yoshihiro Akiyama and a back-and-forth brawl between Stephan Bonnar and Krzysztof Soszynski, and much more.

In a featured bout on the main card, Fight Night award king Chris Lytle pulled out all the stops against tough-as-nails Matt Brown. When the fight went to the ground in the second round, Lytle clearly had a positional advantage.

After working his way into a mounted triangle, Lytle wasn’t quite finished in terms of how uncomfortable he wanted his opponent to be. Only two minutes into the round, Lytle submitted Brown with a rarely-seen mounted triangle/straight armbar combination.

Chris Weidman vs. Tom Lawlor

This is an award where I think the wrong man was rewarded. No offense to Urijah Faber and his guillotine victory over Brian Bowles, but the d’arce choke performed by Chris Weidman onto Ultimate Fighter alumni Tom Lawlor at UFC 139 was spectacular.

Making the submission more incredible was the determination of Tom Lawlor. Refusing to accept defeat, Lawlor never gave up. The bout was stopped by the referee via technical submission after Lawlor was choked into unconsciousness.

Phil Davis vs. Alexander Gustafsson

Phil Davis earned his first Submission of the Night award at UFC 123, when he debuted the “Mr. Wonderful,” a modified kimura performed from top position. However, his UFC 112 submission over otherwise undefeated Alexander Gustafsson should have scored him his first honor.

Perhaps the fact that he didn't was because only five seconds were left on the clock when Gustafsson succumbed to the hold, but a perfectly placed anaconda choke is a beautiful thing and should always be rewarded.

Rafael dos Anjos’ armbar of British lightweight Terry Etim took place on this card, which was another excellent candidate and ended up taking home the bonus instead.

Ed Herman vs. Kyle Noke

When Chris Lytle met Dan Hardy at UFC on Versus 4, it was known in advance that the bout would definitely win Fight of the Night. With those two scrappers, who each fight for the fans, there wasn’t much choice. But when it also won Submission of the Night, another stellar candidate was left in the cold.

Earlier in the night, Ultimate Fighter alums squared off when Australian submission machine Kyle Noke took on Ed Herman in a middleweight bout. The fight went less than a round and ended in a devastating inverted heel hook which saw Noke submitted for the first time in eight years.

The submission marked the 11th career tapout victory for Herman and would have been his third Submission of the Night honor.

Jon Jones vs. Quinton Rampage Jackson

Jon Jones has done a lot of amazing things in his young career. As the youngest champion in history, he has nearly cleaned out one of the most congested divisions in the sport. One of his most overlooked accomplishments is his submission victory over Rampage Jackson back at UFC 135.

The reason that Jones’ submission of Rampage is so impressive is that he became the first man to submit the PRIDE superstar in a decade. The other man to submit him was Japanese legend Kaz Sakuraba back in 2001, when Kaz was in peak form.

While Rampage may not have been on his A-game in his most recent bout with Ryan Bader, he certainly showed up in tremendous shape for his title bout with Jonny Bones. 

Chael Sonnen vs. Brian Stann

Chael Sonnen was involved in a fight that ended with a tapout. No shocker there, right? When seeing that Chael won the fight via submission, the surprise starts to kick in.

Sonnen’s aversion to submissions is well known and commonly a point of ridicule. When he returned to action at UFC 136 against surging contender Brian Stann, few expected Chael to stand with the war hero. However, even fewer expected Chael to secure his third career submission in nearly 40 professional fights. The rarity of Chael’s submission skills being put on display is enough to warrant this fight taking Submission of the Night honors.

The award went to Joe Lauzon for choking out Melvin Guillard. While it is always impressive to finish a ranked lightweight, considering that nine of Guillard’s ten career losses are from submissions, it doesn’t feel like a feat that should be celebrated.

Matt Riddle vs. Sean Pierson

This is a fight where I feel as if the Fight of the Night winners got their checks based on nothing more than their star power. In the first and only example of the UFC allowing fans to vote on Fight of the Night, the headlining fight of UFC 124 got the nod, although it was clearly not the most deserving choice.

Watching GSP jab Josh Koscheck to death for 25 minutes certainly wasn’t as entertaining as the 15-minute war between Ultimate Fighter alumni Matt Riddle and debuting welterweight Sean Pierson.

Although the scores came back a unanimous 30-27, the scrap put on by these two was close throughout. An entertaining bout that briefly made us forget about the upcoming title fight was enough to be worthy of Fight of the Night honors. 

Chris Lytle vs. Matt Serra II

Ironically, this fight wasn’t one of the two fights that received FOTN honors at UFC 119. While Matt Mitrione vs. Joey Beltran and Evan Dunham vs. Sean Sherk were both entertaining fights, the Serra/Lytle battle was a record-breaking fight.

The previous record for combined significant strikes in a single bout belonged to Chris Lytle  and Paul Taylor at UFC 89 with a total of 187. Lytle and Serra decimated that record with a new total of 277 combined significant strikes, with Lytle landing 153 and Serra landing 124.

This fight is the only fight in history where both combatants landed more than 100 significant strikes. The total amount of punishment doled out and absorbed in this fight is greater than any in history, and it should be rewarded for such a feat.

Wanderlei Silva vs. Michael Bisping

There was so much on the line for Wanderlei in this fight. After dropping five of his last six contests, including a razor-thin decision to Rich Franklin in his previous bout, Wanderlei needed to either win this fight or voluntarily step away from the sport forever. He knew it and so did his legion of undying fans.

Because of how close it was on several accounts, including a deep guillotine attempt from Wanderlei and a near DQ when the PRIDE vet nearly threw a soccer kick in the closing moments of the fight, Michael Bisping vs. Wanderlei Silva was an absolute nail-biter.

There may have been a bit of geographical favoritism played in selecting the award winner on this night, as George Sotiropoulos took home the bonus after his breakthrough (albeit one-sided) victory over Joe Stevenson.

Carlos Condit vs. Martin Kampmann

It is hard to win Fight of the Night when Tyson Griffin is on the card. That’s what Carlos Condit and Martin Kampmann found out in their main event contest at UFC Fight Night 18.

In one of the closest main events in UFC history, the two welterweight contenders went back and forth for 15 full minutes. If there was ever a case to be made for 10-10 rounds, this would have been it. To call either fighter a loser in this contest is pure robbery.

The Fight Metric for this bout shows that Condit was unable to prevent any of Kampmann’s five takedowns throughout the contest, although The Natural Born Killer outstruck his Danish counterpart in all three rounds. Kampmann was more active on the ground, attempting six submissions, and while Condit passed four times, Kampmann scored two reversals. 

Carlos Condit vs. Jake Ellenberger

Speaking of Carlos Condit, here he is in yet another back-and-forth war. WEC fans cheered their former champion, who had arrived in the UFC only a few months prior when the UFC absorbed the division.

At UFC Fight Night 19, Condit had to dig down deep to survive the striking power of Jake Ellenberger, who nearly finished the fight several times in the first round. Through toughness and determination, Condit made it out of the round and formulated a new gameplan. The second and third frames were much closer, with Condit clearly taking one and the other being up for grabs.

Condit would go on to win the bout via split decision in a contest that remains hotly contested due to the tremendous domination of Jake Ellenberger in the first round not being scored as a 10-8 round by any of the three judges.

Sam Stout vs. Spencer Fisher II

When Sam Stout and Spencer Fisher met in their rematch, the UFC was not yet granting Fight Night Awards to non-PPV events.

Similarly to Serra vs. Lytle II, the rematch between these two brawling lightweights saw both men take enormous amounts of punishment en route to a decision. Fisher would find himself victorious in the rematch and propelled into the spotlight.

This fight has been tapped for a rubber match on June 22, 2012 at UFC on FX 4.

Thiago Silva vs. Keith Jardine and Todd Duffee vs. Tim Hague

At UFC 102, Nate Marquardt knocked out undefeated Demian Maia as Demian threw a high kick. Maia’s body fell limply to the canvas, and Marquardt opted not to throw any additional punches to the clearly unconscious opponent.

On the same card, two additional knockouts should have been honored alongside that highlight reel moment.

On the preliminary portion of the event, debuting heavyweight Todd Duffee broke the UFC record for fastest KO when he knocked out Tim Hague in only seven seconds. Likewise, the always dangerous Thiago Silva scored a savage counter-strike knockout of light-heavyweight Keith Jardine.

This event was the perfect example of a card where the UFC could have featured all three incredible knockouts. I would hate to be the guy telling Duffee or Silva that they didn’t win the award. 

Frank Mir vs. Mirko Cro Cop

Frank Mir vs. Mirko Cro Cop was atrociously boring. Cro Cop looked gun shy, and Frank Mir had no desire to fully engage him. The Croatian was hesitant to get too close to the submission specialist, and Frank was completely content jabbing away from a safe distance.

That being said, the only redeeming moment of the bout was the fantastic clinch knee that sent Mirko into la-la-land.

UFC President Dana White was so appalled by the lack of action that he refused to give Mir the KO of the Night bonus despite being the only KO on the card. While I agree that the bout was boring and would have never contended for Fight of the Night honors, Mir did knock out a striking legend, and that is a feat which should not be overlooked.

Junior Dos Santos vs. Gilbert Yvel

At UFC 108, Paul Daley blasted Dustin Hazelett into oblivion. The knockout was vicious and jaw shattering. However, Paul Daley did not deserve the KO of the Night bonus that he received. Why not? Precedent.

When Anthony “Rumble” Johnson came in overweight at UFC 104, his catchweight bout with Yoshiyuki Yoshida ended in a thunderous first-round KO. However, Dana White stated that Rumble became ineligible for the award because of his inability to meet the 171-pound limit.

It’s not as if UFC 108 did not have another KO of the Night contender either. Earlier on the card, future heavyweight champion Junior dos Santos knocked out Gilbert Yvel so violently that its replay is now featured on the intro video at the beginning of all UFC PPVs.

Most Winners at UFC 132

UFC 132 featured one of the most violent series of knockouts in UFC history. In fact, four spectacular knockouts occurred within the first three minutes of the very first round. Winning the battle for KO of the Night was Carlos Condit, delivering a flying knee followed up with punches to KO the undefeated Dong Hyun Kim.

The other three contenders should be honored as well, because their knockouts certainly would have been crowned the best on the majority of cards. First on the docket was Rafael dos Anjos shocking heavy favorite George Sotiropoulos with a right hook that knocked him cold before he hit the canvas.

In the very next fight, lightweight striking machine Melvin Guillard lit up Shane Roller with a combination of punches which kicked off a three-fight skid that has yet to be concluded.

Lastly, middleweight knockout artists Chris Leben and Wanderlei Silva squared off in a fight that ended quicker and more violently than expected when Leben landed a vicious uppercut from the clinch only 27 seconds into the fight.

If there was ever a night where multiple KO of the nights should be awarded, this was it.