Before the official decision was announced in the classic slugfest between Diego Sanchez and Martin Kampmann at the KFC Yum! Center, Ultimate Fighting Championship president Dana White raced over to reporters at cageside and declared it Fight of the Night.
And instead of giving them a $40,000 bonus, which he gave to the Knockout of the Night and the Submission of the Night winners, White was so enthused by their brawl that he boosted their bonus to $60,000.
Then, about a half-hour after Sanchez won a taut 29-28 decision, White threw in another $100,000 for each guy. That meant that each fighter got paid his purse – which was not available immediately on Thursday – as well as two performances bonuses totalling $160,000 apiece. In addition, Sanchez was paid a contractually obligated win bonus.
The crowd of 8,319 paid a gate of $471,450 to see the fight and a nearly giddy White, who could barely contain his glee, gave nearly all of it to Sanchez and Kampmann.
“I don’t forget fights like that,” White told Yahoo! Sports. “That was an unbelievable fight. That was the kind of fight you saw back in the 1980s in boxing, a classic war. Diego Sanchez is one of the toughest [expletives] I’ve ever seen, man. It was a dogfight. They both gave every ounce of what they had. Kampmann got a loss on his record, but he didn’t lose that fight. There are no losers when you’re in a fight like that.”