Following an epic night of fights at Paris’s Accor Arena in which tied the promotional record for the most finishes (11), the UFC handed out four $50,000 bonuses to the following fighters:
Kaue Fernandes
Nova Uniao’s Kaue Fernandes (11-2 MMA, 3-1 UFC) etched his name into the UFC record books with a brutal first-round finish of former Cage Warriors champion Harry Hardwick (13-4-1 MMA, 0-1 UFC). Fernandes was originally slated to face Fares Ziam before the French fighter withdrew this week due to the death of a grandparent, with Hardwick coming in on just a few days’ notice.
A barrage of leg kicks left “Houdini” unable to stand and Fernandes becomes the 19th fighter to win via leg kick TKO inside the Octagon.
Ante Delija
Ante Delija knows what it feels like to stand on top of the mountain, but now he’s climbing a new one. The former PFL heavyweight champion, who banked the $1 million prize in 2022, wasted no time making waves in his UFC debut. Delija flattened veteran Marcin Tybura (27-10 MMA, 14-9 UFC) with a thunderous first-round knockout, announcing himself as a force in the division.
For Delija, the victory carried more than just Octagon significance. Nearly a decade ago in Russia, Tybura handed him a painful setback when an injury forced a TKO stoppage in their M-1 Global title fight. In Paris, Delija turned back the clock—and the tables—by delivering the kind of finish that erased old memories and set the tone for a new chapter.
Mason Jones
Mason Jones (17-2 MMA, 3-2 UFC) turned disaster into triumph in Paris, mounting the kind of rally that could see him in the “Comeback of the Year” conversation. Bolaji Oki (10-3 MMA, 2-2 UFC) floored the Welshman in the opening round and looked moments away from a finish. Jones, however, brushed it off with a post-fight grin, insisting he “wasn’t hurt.”
Instead of folding, Jones dug in. He weathered Oki’s storm, even stealing one judge’s scorecard in the first round, then came out in the second with bad intentions. This time there was no escape for Oki, as Jones flipped the fight on its head and closed the show with a relentless TKO finish.
Benoit Saint Denis
Fighting in front of his countrymen, Benoit Saint Denis (15-3 MMA, 7-3 UFC) didn’t exactly enjoy a wall of support ahead of his co-main event clash with Mauricio Ruffy (12-2 MMA, 3-1 UFC). But it didn’t take long for “BSD” to shift the mood inside the arena.
Early on, the Frenchman pushed Ruffy into unfamiliar waters, forcing the Brazilian to look unsettled for the first time in his brief UFC career. By the second round, Saint Denis dragged the fight to the canvas, locking in a rear-naked choke that doubled as a punishing face crank and left Ruffy with no escape but to tap.
