MMA fighter awarded unique bonus
TweetUFC president awards a $70,000 bonus because he hated a fighter’s short
By Steve Cofield
If fighters deliver on fight night for the UFC, the promotion has no problem throwing lots of cash their way. Bonuses for Fight of the Night, Submission of the Night and Knockout of the Night have turned out to be brilliant moves and really motivate the fighters.
There was no submission victory at UFC 133 so UFC president Dana White used the extra cash to award a brand new bonus -- "the thanks for getting those horrifying shorts off TV s soon as possible" bonus.
Brian Ebersole's victory was impressive, but White was happier with the fact that he no longer had to watch Dennis Hallman (pictured) in the Octagon wearing tiny, tiny blue Speedos.
White argued that Hallman's fight gear wasn't even a Speedo.
"That wasn't a Speedo. I've seen Speedos before, that had to be custom made," White said with a tone somewhere between joking and still kind of irked. "[Ebersole] deserved every dime he got!"
The blue trunks may have distracted Ebersole. A good grappler, he was taken down in the opening 15 seconds of the fight and had to deal with a submission predicament. Hallman had his back and was trying to secure a choke.
"I was just worried about that cup, and his uniform malfunctioning to be quite honest," joked Ebersole. "I knew I was fine from there. I've been training with some very, very good black belts in Melbourne, Australia."
Aside from the money, Ebersole said the strange reason for the bonus will make for a great story down the road.
"It's obviously one of them stories that's going to stick out for a long time. The longer I fight, the less stories I'm probably going to remember. That'll be one I can tell the grandkids and have a laugh about," said Ebersole.
Ebersole's journey to fighting on a UFC pay-per-view is pretty amazing. He's a 30-year-old from Indiana, but had to fight abroad to finally get his chance. He moved to Australia in 2007 and logged a total of 61 professional fights before catching the attention of the UFC. Now he's 2-0 with the biggest promotion in the world.
"It's a bit surreal. I always knew I could compete with the best guys in the world because I trained [in the past] with the best guys in the world out in California. So to be able to get my chance and win my first two fights ... you know I got thrown at the wall and I stuck," Ebersole said. "You know they can't rid of me for a little while. I'm pretty happy that I've done what I set out to do."
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