Unranked UFC lightweights Drew Dober and Jean Silva went to war at their UFC Fight Night: Namajunas vs. Cortez bout in Denver. The fight has been awarded the ‘Fight of the Night’ $50k bonus by the UFC, as many expected. An absolutely action-packed affair, the bout was stopped in the third round due to the doctor’s intervention.

Dober had suffered one of the nastiest all-time cuts above his right eye, courtesy of a couple of spinning elbows and hard lefts from his undefeated Brazilian opponent. While the Colorado native bravely continued fighting, the referee stepped in around the one-and-a-half-minute mark of the final round to declare Dober unable to continue, handing Silva a TKO loss via doctor’s stoppage.

While Dober lost the fight, he wasn’t too perturbed and felt that he had given a good account of himself in the Octagon, despite the result.

“Such an honor to be able to step in there and show off my heart and determination. Thank you, Denver, and the UFC for these moments and opportunities. There is no shame in failure. Just an opportunity to become a better man,” Dober wrote in an Instagram post after the fight.

This, of course, was Dober’s fourth ‘Fight of the Night’ bonus, to go with the four ‘Performance of the Night’ bonuses he has earned in his 23 fights in the Dana White-led promotion.

The main event of the card between #6 ranked flyweight Rose Namajunas and #12 ranked Tracy Cortez also went the distance. Namajunas, because of a dominant performance, where she even dominated Cortez on the latter’s strong suit, grappling, cruised to a unanimous decision victory at the end of the five rounds. However, since the fight wasn’t very competitive, or didn’t end in a knockout, it didn’t receive any bonuses. The UFC, however, did hand out multiple ‘Performance of the Night’ Bonuses for the most dominant finishes on the card.

Johnson, Jackson win ‘POTN’ bonuses for spectacular KOs

Along with the FOTN bonus, the UFC handed out two $50k ‘Performance’ bonus for the Denver card. Unranked flyweight Charles Johnson, coming into tonight’s fight having lost the last three of his five fights, caught Joshua Van with a vicious upper-cut in the third round to win a spectacular knockout vicotry following two rounds of back and forth with ‘The Fearless.’

The second ‘Performance’ bonus went to Montel Jackson for his eighteen-second knockout victory over Da’Mon Blackshear in the very first round of their bantamweight bout, after which he is officially on a five-fight win streak.

Interestingly, one of the fights that looked like it was shaping up to be a prize for a $50k bonus was ruled a no-contest. Abdul Razak Alhassan, taking on fellow unranked middleweight Cody Brundage, rocked the latter in the opening seconds of their fights, but followed up with (illegal) elbows to the back of the head as Brundage went for a takedown. Since the American was unable to continue, the referee declared the bout a no-contest in the very first round of the main card fight. What are your thoughts on the card?