(That awkward moment when fireballs fail to shoot out of your hands.)

The UFC paid out $1,513,000 in disclosed salaries and performance bonuses for last Saturday’s UFC 146: Dos Santos vs. Mir card, with Junior Dos Santos, Frank Mir, and Cain Velasquez‘s matching $200,000 checks eating up about 40% of the total. The full salary list is below via MMAJunkie. Keep in mind that these figures don’t include additional revenue from sponsorships, undisclosed “locker room bonuses,” or percentages of the pay-per-view revenue that are in some fighters’ contracts.

Junior Dos Santos: $200,000 (no win bonus)
def. Frank Mir: $200,000

Cain Velasquez: $200,000 (includes $100,000 win bonus)
def. Antonio Silva: $70,000

Roy Nelson: $110,000 (includes $20,00 win bonus and $70,000 Knockout of the Night bonus)
def. Dave Herman: $21,000

Stipe Miocic: $20,000 (includes $10,000 win bonus)
def. Shane Del Rosario: $20,000

(Props: FoxSports)

The main event of last night’s UFC on FUEL TV 3 event blew past its already high expectations. “The Korean Zombie” Chan Sung Jung and Dustin Poirier set a frenetic pace for over three rounds, with Jung dominating the fight both in the standup and on the ground. In the end, Jung rocked Poirier with punches and a flying knee, and put “Diamond” to sleep on the mat with a d’arce choke at the 1:07 mark of round four. You can check out highlights from their scrap above, including an excerpt from Jung’s astounding grappling clinic in round two.

The match earned both men $40,000 Fight of the Night bonuses, and Jung picked up an additional $40k for the event’s Submission of the Night (“What about meeeeeeee?!” – The McKenzietine). Knockout of the Night went to Tom Lawlor, who celebrated his birthday then starched Jason MacDonald in just 50 seconds.

After the jump: Dustin Poirier gets emotional in a post-fight interview with Ariel Helwani, and full results from UFC on FUEL TV: Korean Zombie vs. Poirier.

(Maybe now that Bart’s rich, he can stop swagger-jacking KarmaAteMyCat. / Photo via MMAFighting)

The Nevada State Athletic Commission has released the official payroll from Saturday’s UFC 137 event, revealing that the participating fighters earned $1,326,000 in disclosed salaries and performance bonuses. Headliner Nick Diaz went home with the largest check — $275,000, including his Fight of the Night bonus — but the biggest winner had to be featherweight veteran Bart Palaszewski, who made more than ten times his $10,000 show-money, thanks to a win bonus, a Knockout of the Night bonus, and a 25% cut of Tyson Griffin’s purse.

The full UFC 137 payout list is below; keep in mind that the figures don’t include additional revenue from sponsorships and undisclosed “locker room” bonuses, or deductions for taxes, insurance, and license fees.

Nick Diaz: $275,000 (includes $75,000 Fight of the Night bonus; no win bonus)
def. B.J. Penn: $225,000 (includes $75,000 Fight of the Night bonus)

Cheick Kongo: $140,000 (includes $70,000 win bonus)
def. Matt Mitrione: $10,000

(If only our last day at the office could be this satisfying. Also, what’s up with the little bunny on Dan’s shorts? Photo courtesy of UFC.com)

After Dan Hardy tapped to a Chris Lytle guillotine choke last night at UFC on Versus 5 — Hardy’s fourth consecutive loss within the Octagon — many fans assumed that the Outlaw would be released by the UFC to get a couple of tune-up wins somewhere else. But Hardy doesn’t have to start updating his resume just yet. UFC co-owner Lorenzo Fertitta confirmed via Twitter that Hardy won’t be cut. His reasoning: “I like guys that WAR!!!”

That’s great news for the former welterweight title contender. The question is, does Hardy even want another chance? Winless since 2009, Hardy appears to be in no rush to get back on the horse. As he told MMA Junkie:

“I think if they are going to give me one more fight, then I really need to take some time and come back reinvented…There are a lot of things I can do. But right now, I need space from competing, and I need space in the gym getting beaten up by much better guys in every area. I’ll either improve or find another way. If I’ve got one more fight, then I’ll take one more fight. But maybe it won’t be for a little while…“

(Props: ESPN via MMAMania)

Greatest comeback knockout in UFC history? Last night‘s main event clash between Cheick Kongo and Pat Barry is certainly up there with previous shockers like Scott Smith vs. Pete Sell and Mike Russow vs. Todd Duffee, considering how close it came to being stopped. Kongo earned himself a $50,000 Knockout of the Night bonus for his efforts. The other performance bonuses went to Joe Lauzon, who picked up the Submission of the Night award for his first-round kimura over Curt Warburton, and Nik Lentz and Charles Oliveria, who were awarded the Fight of the Night despite the fact that an illegal knee from Oliveira near the end of the match may result in the fight being declared a no-contest.

After the jump: An excerpt from the night’s other epic battle — Rampage vs. Ariel.

(Photo courtesy of MMAFighting.com. Gif is now after the jump.)

Already a fixture on the UFC highlight reels of Junior Dos Santos and Roy Nelson, Stefan Struve became the victim of another first-round knockout tonight at UFC 130, succumbing to what might be the most devastating superman punch ever thrown inside of an eight-sided cage. The victorious Travis Browne increased his MMA record to 11-0-1, and was awarded UFC 130′s Knockout of the Night bonus for his efforts, picking up an additional $70,000.

UFC 130′s other performance bonuses went to Brian Stann and Jorge Santiago (Fight of the Night) for their two-round bang-up that kicked off the pay-per-view broadcast, and Gleison Tibau (Submission of the Night) for his rear-naked choke of Rafaello Oliveira during the prelims; it was the only fight on the card that ended via submission.

All praise be to Master Steven Seagal. Or Ralph Macchio. One of the two. Lyoto Machida‘s incredible jumping front-kick KO of Randy Couture at UFC 129 netted him the event’s Knockout of the Night bonus, which came out to a whopping $129,000. (See what Dana did there?) The UFC can certainly afford it, since UFC 129′s gate revenue was reportedly $12.075 million.

Also picking up $129k bonuses: Jose Aldo and Mark Hominick (Fight of the Night) for their epic five-round featherweight title bout, and Pablo Garza for his flying triangle over Yves Jabouin in the first preliminary match.

Another look at the Machida/Couture KO is after the jump. Gifs via The Destroyer88.

(Hey Diego! A Japanese Macaque called! He wants his distinctive coloring and eerily human-like appearance back! Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha!” Photo courtesy of Tracy Lee/CageWriter)

Whether it was out of true admiration for a fantastic fight or guilt about the controversial decision, Dana White and the UFC made sure that Diego Sanchez and Martin Kampmann were well compensated for their main event performance last night at UFC on Versus 3, which ended in a unanimous 29-28 decision for Sanchez after three gory, action-packed rounds. While the event’s other bonus-winners — Shane Roller (Knockout of the Night) and Brian Bowles (Submission of the Night) — took home $40,000 bumps, Sanchez and Kampmann were first told that their Fight of the Night bonuses would be $60,000, before DW reportedly added another $100,000 each to their checks. So that’s $400,000 in total end-of-night bonuses, for an event that only collected $471,450 in gate receipts. Sometimes you just do it for the love, I guess.

As for that decision, which was troubling to many (myself not included), FightMetric did the math and decided that Kampmann should have won the fight 29-28 due to number of strikes landed and overall effectiveness. Of course, the criteria that computerized scoring systems use is often much different from the ones used by human judges, for better or worse.

(Pierson and Riddle’s three-round battle wasn’t enough to win FOTN, but Riddle did go home with the $100 Snot Rocket of the Night bonus. Photo courtesy of MMAFighting.com.)

The performance bonus payouts for Saturday’s UFC 124 event were notable for several reasons: For the first time ever, the UFC allowed fans to choose the "Fight of the Night" in an online vote. Update: The FOTN and Knockout bonuses were $100,000 apiece — the largest bumps since UFC 100 — and two separate [$50,000] Submission of the Night awards were handed out, which meant the total bonus money added up to $400,000, half of which arguably went to the wrong guys. Here’s how the UFC 124 bonuses shook out, in order of most deserving to least deserving…

Submission of the Night #1: Jim Miller, for surviving the relentless grappling offensive of Charles Oliveira, then ending the fight himself with a kneebar just shy of the two-minute mark. Submitting the young, formerly undefeated jiu-jitsu phenom is a major accomplishment for Miller, and should hopefully earn him a fight with a big name in his next outing.

Submission of the Night #2: Mark Bocek, for his first-round triangle choke of Dustin Hazelett (who’s no slouch on the ground either). The way that Bocek set up the triangle from the top then rolled underneath Hazelett to secure it was pretty freakin’ brilliant.

(Props: Heavy)

The UFC handed out $40,000 performance bonuses to five fighters following UFC Fight Night: Marquardt vs. Palhares, including two separate "Submission of the Night" awards. The honorees are:

Knockout of the Night: Brian Foster, for his 67-second storming of Forrest Petz, which was the lone stoppage on the preliminary card. Petz now drops to 0-2 in his current UFC stint, and will most likely be shown the door.

Submission of the Night (1): Cole Miller, for dropping Ross Pearson with punches in the second round of their fight, then icing him with a rear-naked choke. Miller has scored the SotN award in three of his last five appearances, and officially enters the UFC Performance Bonus Leaderboard. 

Submission of the Night (2): Charles Oliveira, who pushed his record to 14-0 with a huge win over TUF 8 winner Efrain Escudero, secured via standing rear-naked choke in the third round. Though he had trouble getting Escudero to the mat in the first two frames, Oliveira showed off his tenacity in the victory, as well as some impressively unorthodox striking.

Fight of the Night: Kyle Kingsbury and Jared Hamman, for their fast-paced three-round brawl in the prelims. Despite a third-round rally from Hamman, Kingsbury’s domination and damage in the first two frames secured him 29-28 scores from all three judges.

Some other notes on the fights…

(Video of the Daley/Koscheck cheap shot, courtesy of LynchTheGrynch; sorry about those first eight seconds, guys.)

In case you missed the press conference, the big news coming out of UFC 113‘s post-event aftermath is that Paul Daley and Kimbo Slice have been released from the UFC. Daley suffered his first loss in the Octagon after being smothered by Josh Koscheck for three rounds in their co-headlining bout last night, then followed it up by slugging Kos after the bell (see above). As Dana White explained to reporters, the poor decision earned Daley a permanent ban from the UFC:

As for Kimbo, his lopsided loss to rookie TUF 10 vet Matt Mitrione was enough to seal his fate. But unlike Daley, White has nothing but respect for the former YouTube brawler:

(DaMarques Johnson turns the tables on Brad Blackburn. Photo courtesy of allelbows.)

Since UFC 112 featured two title fights that both went the distance in completely baffling fashion, we didn’t get to see much preliminary card action, with the exception of Phil Davis’s first-round stoppage of Alexander Gustafsson. Here’s how the dark matches shook out…

– Phil Davis def. Alexander Gustafsson via submission (anaconda choke), 4:55 of round 1. 
– Rick Story def. Nick Osipczak via split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28)
– DaMarques Johnson def. Brad Blackburn via TKO, 2:08 of round 3
– Paul Kelly def. Matt Veach via submission (guillotine choke), 3:41 of round 2
– Jon Madsen def. Mostapha Al Turk via unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)

With three straight losses, Al Turk is definitely heading to the scrap yard after this one, while Blackburn and Veach may also be in trouble after suffering their second-consecutive defeats. But enough about those poor losers. Blackburn’s opponent DaMarques Johnson picked up a $75,000 Knockout of the Night bonus for putting Bad Brad away with a body kick in the third round of their fight after getting handled for most of the first two frames. Rafael Dos Anjos was awarded the Submission of the Night bonus for his armbar of Terry Etim, while the Fight of the Night was given to Mark Munoz and Kendall Grove for their two-rounder, which Munoz won via TKO after almost getting finished repeatedly in round one.

(And he makes it look so easy…)

Chris Lytle‘s $50,000 Submission of the Night bonus at UFC 110 represented his seventh UFC performance bonus in his last eight fights, which made us wonder: Does that make him the #1 bonus-collector on the UFC’s roster? And who else is in the running? So, with the help of the UG and Wikipedia, we compiled a ranking of the UFC’s top performance bonus leaders, based on available information. When possible, we added up the grand totals of the fighters’ pay-bumps, though the amounts of these bonuses weren’t consistently reported before UFC 70.

Fighters With Twelve Bonuses
Joe Lauzon*: 6 Submission of the Night bonuses, 5 Fight of the Night bonuses, 1 Knockout of the Night bonus
Anderson Silva: 7 KOTN, 3 FOTN, 2 SOTN

Fighters With Ten Bonuses
Chris Lytle: 6 FOTN bonuses, 3 SOTN bonuses, 1 KOTN bonus; $515,000 total (Note: Lytle retired from the UFC after his victory over Dan Hardy at UFC on Versus 5, which scored him a Fight of the Night and a Submission of the Night bonus.)

Fighters With Nine Bonuses:
Nate Diaz: 5 FOTN, 4 SOTN; $445,000 total

(When you know you’ve won a fight, you don’t have to run around with your arms raised, making a big show for the judges. You can just lay on the mat, drooling like a champion. Photo courtesy of Sherdog.)

Following a successful debut in Australia this weekend, the UFC handed out $50,000 performance bonuses to the following lucky bastards:

Fight of the Night: George Sotiropoulos and Joe Stevenson, for their main-card three-rounder. Silva/Bisping might have been a closer battle, but Sotiropoulos gave the Sydney crowd what they paid for — 15 minutes of Aussie domination.

Knockout of the Night: Cain Velasquez, for his first-round smashing of Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira in the headlining bout.

Submission of the Night: Chris Lytle, for scoring UFC 110′s only sub, a kneebar of Brian Foster during the prelims. Amazingly, Lytle has won seven end-of-night bonuses in his last eight UFC appearances.

In other news…

(Gray Maynard discusses his fight against Nate Diaz, and the prospects of a future title shot against BJ Penn. Props: Sherdog.)

Since we only got to see the four main card fights on last night’s UFC Fight Night 20 broadcast, here’s a recap of the prelims…

– Chris Leben def. Jay Silva via unanimous decision (30-27 x 3)
– Rick Story def. Jesse Lennox via split decision (30-27 x 2, 28-29. Due to a scoring error, the bout was initially declared a majority draw.)
– Thiago Tavares and Nik Lentz fought to a majority draw (29-27 Lentz, 28-28 x 2. Tavares was deducted a point for low blows.)
– Rory MacDonald def. Mike Guymon via submission (armbar), 4:27 of round 1
– Rafael dos Anjos def. Kyle Bradley via unanimous decision (30-27 x 3)
– Gerald Harris def. John Salter via TKO (strikes), 3:24 of round 3
– Nick Catone def. Jesse Forbes via split decision (28-29, 29-28 x 2)

For scoring the night’s only stoppage via strikes, Gerald Harris pocketed a $30,000 Knockout of the Night bonus. Evan Dunham picked up the $30,000 Submission of the Night bonus for his horrible-looking armbar on Efrain Escudero (don’t worry, Effy’s fine). $30k Fight of the Night bumps went to Tom Lawlor and Aaron Simpson for their memorable three-round battle, which saw Simpson get battered half to death in the first round before edging out Lawlor in rounds two and three (according to two judges, at least).

(Photo courtesy of Sherdog.)

Though UFC 108 had a lot of great finishes and battles to choose from, the recipients of the traditional end-of-night bonuses should come as no suprise. Picking up the $50,000 bumps are:

– Knockout of the Night: Paul "Semtex" Daley, for the IED he detonated on Dustin Hazelett.

– Submission of the Night: Cole Miller, for his inverted triangle on Dan Lauzon; I know it’s early, but I’m sure we’ll be seeing that one on "Best of 2010" lists.

– Fight of the Night: Sam Stout and Joe Lauzon. After suffering through Lauzon’s takedowns and elbows in the opening minutes, Stout put on the striking performance of his life en route to a lopsided decision.

Other notes on the evening…

(Wilson Gouveia [in the Brazilian shorts] and Alan Belcher [in the Fairyland shorts] slug it out at UFC 107. Photo courtesy of MMA Fanhouse.)

Despite some thrilling moments in UFC 107‘s main card, the UFC awarded all of its traditional end-of-night bonuses to preliminary card fighters. Scoring the $65,000 pay bumps were…

Knockout of the Night: TJ Grant, for wrecking Kevin Burns with a right hook in the closing seconds of their one-rounder, which kicked off the prelims.

Submission of the Night: DaMarques Johnson, who upkicked the wits out of Edgar Garcia, then quickly finished him with a triangle choke in the first round of their fight. The memorable sequence — which was shown at the end of the pay-per-view broadcast — occurred shortly after Johnson was punched to the mat.

Fight of the Night: Alan Belcher vs. Wilson Gouveia, which also made it to the PPV broadcast. Though their match was the second-shortest of the night, it was a fast-paced striking war that ended with Gouveia crumpling under Belcher’s onslaught. And really, are you going to give it to Clay Guida three fights in a row? You know he’ll just blow it all on shampoo and energy drinks…