UFC Minneapolis bonuses: Ngannou smashes dos Santos in POTN win

Check out which fighters won performance bonuses from UFC Fight Night: Ngannou vs. dos Santos.

The Target Center in Minneapolis, MN was home to a highly entertaining night of fights. The card saw seven (T)KOs, one submission and four decisions, including one majority decision.

PERFORMANCES OF THE NIGHT – Francis Ngannou, Joe Benavidez, Alonzo Menifield, Eryk Anders

Eryk Anders needed just 78 seconds to send Vinicius Moreira off to the Loser’s Circle, scoring a sensational knockout off a pair of hooks (right then left) followed by vicious ground-and-pound. Outstanding finish that firmly plants Anders back in the win column.

Alonzo Menifield was a man on a mission tonight, and that mission was to stop Paul Craig from dragging this fight to the last moments of the last round. It took him less than three-and-a-half minutes to put the Scot away. Craig decided that a spinning wheel kick was the best way to counteract the bombs that had already dropped him once, but Menifield just popped him with a counter right, flooring him again, then brutalized him with ground-and-pound until Herb Dean was able to intervene.

Joe Benavidez and Jussier Formiga put on a fun scrap for the better part of two rounds, but it was “JoeJitsu” that would walk away with the TKO victory. Benavidez said in his post-fight interview with Jon Anik that he didn’t eat before the fight because he wanted to be “hungry like a stray dog,” and he definitely looked hungry tonight, fighting through the adversity of a thumb poke and a cut over the left eye. A Benavidez head kick would rock Formiga late in the second, and from there, he would push forward with a slew of bombs, pinning Jussier to the cage until he fell to the mat. Joe followed with ground-and-pound until the ref stepped in.

Francis Ngannou is a bad, bad man, and he only needed 71 seconds to put Junior dos Santos away. The two traded kicks, and dos Santos even managed to trip Ngannou to the mat, but that moment would soon be horribly overshadowed by a brutal assault from Big Francy when he landed a pair of right hooks that put JDS on the ground. Ngannou followed him down to seal the deal.

GATE – $952,204.77 USD

ATTENDANCE – 10,123