UFC Vegas 98 Bonus Report: Brandon Royval and Tatsuro Taira earn FOTN honors

The Octagon returned to Nevada for tonight’s UFC Vegas 98 event, a 12-bout fight card headlined by Brandon Royval vs. Tatsuro Taira.

The highly anticipated men’s flyweight headliner proved to be an absolutely thrilling back and forth affair. Brandon Royval got off to a dominant start in the opening five minutes fight, but Tatsuro Taira stormed back to smother ‘Raw Dawg’ for the duration of Round 2. The fighters seemingly traded rounds three and four, and thus the fifth and final round would decide a winner. Royval appeared to have more in the gas tank in the final five minutes, and nearly finished the fight with a late rear-naked choke attempt. However, Taira survived, and we went to the judges where Royval was awarded the split decision victory.

UFC Vegas 98 was co-headlined by a middleweight bout featuring Brad Tavares taking on Jun Yong Park. The contest resulted in a back-and-forth slugfest, as the Korean and Hawaiian traded leather for three straight rounds. After fifteen-minutes of action, ‘The Iron Turtle’ was awarded a split decision win from the judges’ in attendance.

Following the conclusion of tonight’s event, UFC officials announced at the post-fight press conference that four fighters would be taking home performance bonuses.

Fight of the night: Flyweight fighters Brandon Royval and Tatsuro Taira each pocketed $50k for their thrilling war in tonight’s UFC Vegas 98 main event. ‘Raw Dawg’ ultimately won the contest by split decision (47-48, 48-47, 48-47).

Performance of the night: Ramazan Temirov earned an extra $50k for his sensational first-round TKO victory over CJ Vergara (see that here).

Performance of the night: Clayton Carpenter pocketed an extra $50k for his second-round submission victory over Lucas Rocha (see that here).

Are you surprised by any of the performance bonuses handed out by Dana White and company following the conclusion of tonight’s UFC Vegas 98 event? Share your thoughts in the comment section PENN Nation!