UFC Lincoln bonuses: Gaethje’s lightning fast KO gets POTN honors
Check out our breakdown of the post-fight bonuses from UFC Fight Night: Gaethje vs. Vick from Lincoln, Nebraska.
The Pinnacle Bank Arena in Lincoln, Nebraska, was home to a fun night of fights, with six (T)KOs, three submissions, and four decisions, including two split-decisions.
Performances of the Night: Justin Gaethje and Eryk Anders
Justin Gaethje and James Vick was a fight with “action” written all over it. The UFC billed it as a fight between two guys with a combined 18 (T)KOs, but forgot to mention that 15 of those belonged to Justin Gaethje. Gaethje decided to remind everyone.
Just one minute into the fight, Gaethje slipped a left hand inside Vick’s guard as Vick circled along the cage, and followed it immediately with a huge overhand right that sparked Vick out cold. Vick went down hard and still didn’t seem to know where he was minutes later. Fortunately, he seems to have recovered just fine. Gaethje earned an extra 50 Gs for his brutal knockout finish.
Eryk Anders’ slow start cost him the first round of his fight against Tim Williams, a larger, smaller-eared version of Joe Lauzon. Williams was a very game opponent, tying Anders up in the clinch, and throwing body kicks and leg kicks, one of which put “Ya Boy” on rollerskates. By the end of the round, Anders had been dumped on the mat and had his back taken by Williams as the horn sounded.
Round two saw Anders become more active, as Williams wasn’t giving him any room to work, even slamming the former footballer to the mat. That was the end of Williams’ bullying, though. Eryk landed some hard lefts and uppercuts, cutting Tim under the eye.
The third round was almost a repeat of the first, with Anders taking his time getting his rhythm going again. Then, Williams threw a big kick right as Anders landed that hellacious left, and down the big Lauzon doppelganger went. From that point on, Anders controlled the fight, landing big lefts and uppercuts. Williams even managed to dump Anders to the mat again, but couldn’t keep him there.
In the last 60 seconds, the two traded big shots, Anders with a monster left and Williams with a spinning backfist. Williams goes down to a heat-seeking missile, and when he tries to get up, Anders kicked him so hard, you could almost see the birdies and stars above his head. Anders gets the KO at 4:42 of the third round and 50,000 smackers to line his pockets with.
Fight of the Night: Iuri Alcantara vs. Cory Sandhagen
Alcantara vs. Sandhagen was a perfect example of how referees need to protect fighters from themselves. Alcantara took Sandhagen down early in the first, locked in a tight armbar, and it looked like Sandhagen’s elbow popped. Alcantara then proceeded to bash Sandhagen’s face for quite awhile. The referee could have justifiably stopped the fight at this point. He didn’t, though, and Sandhagen managed to get the reversal.
This is where things got difficult to watch. Sandhagen rained blows down onto Alcantara from the top position, punches, hammerfists, elbows, even standing just to land punches with even more force. Alcantara was clearly out of it after the first few big shots and was moving like he was underwater. The lights were on, but nobody was home. The referee let Sandhagen continue to pound on Alcantara for what felt like hours, with tons of unanswered shots landing through his feeble attempts at a guard.
The bell “saved” Alcantara, by which I mean it let him sit on his stool for a minute before Sandhagen continued exactly where he had left off, downing Iuri and blasting him with huge shots. After another minute of brain damage, with Sandhagen looking unsure about whether or not he actually wanted to keep hitting Alcantara, in case he, you know, died, the referee finally called it. The referee was subsequently pulled from officiating duties for the rest of the card, on account of apparently being a serial killer by proxy. Sandhagen and Alcantara both got $50,000 bonuses, probably at least partially as an apology for the awful officiating.
Attendance: 6,409
Gate: $478,337