UFC on Fox: Diaz vs. Miller Bonuses

Lavar Johnson (Josh Hedges/UFC)

Diaz, Lavar Johnson, Gaudinot, Lineker pick up $65K awards

Four fighters, including the underdog in the main event, picked up $65,000 bonus awards for their performances at UFC on Fox: Diaz vs. Miller on Saturday night.

Nate Diaz, Lavar Johnson, Louis Gaudinot and John Lineker were given post-fight bonuses following the event, which was broadcast live on the Fox network and took place at the Izod Center in East Rutherford, N.J. UFC president Dana White announced the bonus winners after the card.

Diaz picked up Submission of the Night for his main event guillotine victory over Jim Miller – and became the first fighter to stop Miller in the process. Diaz was roughly a 2-to-1 underdog in the fight, and Miller was fighting just 15 minutes from his New Jersey home.

But perhaps just as impressively, Diaz picked up his ninth fight night bonus award. He now has five Fight of the Night bonuses and four for Submission of the Night. Each of the three fights in his current winning streak in his return to the lightweight division have resulted in post-fight bonus checks.

Johnson opened up the Fox main card telecast with a first-round Knockout of the Night victory over fellow heavyweight knockout artists Pat Barry. The two started out throwing bombs, but Barry was able to get the fight to the ground and got full mount on Johnson. He quickly transitioned to side mount and worked for an Americana armlock. But Johnson was able to power back to his feet, and once there he used his size advantage to begin to dominate Barry with the same kind of power shots he used for a Knockout of the Night win over Joey Beltran in January in his UFC debut.

And Fight of the Night went to a pair of flyweights in Gaudinot and Lineker. Gaudinot, fighting for just the second time since his UFC debut on the Season 14 Finale of “The Ultimate Fighter,” picked up a submission win late in the second round after nearly 10 minutes of toe-to-toe exchanges with Lineker, who was making his UFC debut and who was nearly a 3-to-1 favorite in the fight.