Stupid Smarch events.
If it feels like the UFC hasn’t exactly been firing on all cylinders lately, we have a statistic right here that says you’re not just imagining it: the promotion hasn’t awarded a Fight of the Night bonus to anyone across the last four events.
That’s right: from March 15th’s UFC Fight Night: Vettori vs. Dolidze 2 event to April 5th’s UFC on ESPN: Emmett vs. Murphy, things have been so mediocre that no fight has distinguished itself as FOTN worthy. Instead, the UFC just gave out four performance bonuses for KOs and submissions.
The eight previous cards of 2025 all featured a Fight of the Night bonus.
So how do we explain this sudden lack of amazing stand out fights? This wasn’t a stretch of all-Apex cards. This particular s—t sandwich had Apex cards as the bread but the filling was a London card and Mexico City card … both locations where the fans and regional fighters usually lift events up to higher levels.
That wasn’t the case in London, which has been universally panned as a wonky and flat card that did not deliver. As for Mexico City, maybe it was the elevation? Half the card seemed to be fighting fatigue or the need to drop a deuce, leading to a less than energetic event.
Can you blame this trend on the continued watering down of talent to fill out the UFC’s hectic schedule? Sure. But that’s been going on for a while and we haven’t seen this stretch of FOTN blanks.
Our conspiracy theory? Perhaps this is yet another crafty business move from parent company TKO, who are always looking at ways to claw back an extra nickel on expenses. They love the ‘small but mighty’ Apex’s ability to improve their already hefty profit margins. Now they’re downsizing the bonus budget by admitting the fights are lackluster.
FOTN means two fighters get $100,000 total. A fourth performance bonus is just $50,000. With this one simple trick, UFC has saved $200,000 over the past four events! That’s like not having to pay winning purses for 10 Contender Series fighters! All for the low low cost of not having any fight stand out as particularly entertaining over seven hours of programming.
It’s genius!
