LAS VEGAS – Pablo Garza, Cody McKenzie, Leonard Garcia and Nam Phan all took home bonuses for their performances on Saturday's finale card for Season 12 of "The Ultimate Fighter" at The Pearl at The Palms in Las Vegas.UFC president Dana White announced the bonuses at the post-fight press conference on Saturday. Each of the bonuses was worth $30,000.
Garza scored a frightening first-round knockout win over Fredson Paixao in the second fight of the night on the preliminary card. Garza (10-1, 1-0 UFC), a former basketball player, delivered a flying left knee that caught Paixao flush on the chin, dropping him immediately. He followed up with shots on the ground before the fight was stopped, and he needed prompt medical attention – including oxygen and a neck collar. He eventually sat up on his own and was helped out of the cage after nearly 10 minutes on the ground. He was taken from the theater on a stretcher.
McKenzie, a contestant on Season 12 of TUF, has made a name for himself thanks to a modified guillotine choke he terms the McKenzie-tine. Not counting his unofficial bouts in the TUF house, McKenzie had finished nine straight opponents by his guillotine. Saturday, he made it 10 when he stopped TUF 12 housemate Aaron Wilkinson just over 2 minutes into the first round. The win moves McKenzie to 12-0 with 11 submissions and one knockout, which came in his debut.
And no stranger to bonuses, slugfests or split decisions, Garcia stunned most of the crowd at The Pearl when he won a split decision over Phan. The one judge scoring the wild fight for Phan gave him all three rounds, and Phan was clearly surprised at the decision. Garcia has now had four straight split decisions and five in six fights. He is 3-2-1 in that stretch, two coming with Fight of the Night bonuses attached to them in the WEC.
The Garcia-Phan bout was the first televised featherweight bout in UFC history. Garcia was making his return to the promotion for the first time since fighting in the UFC as a lightweight, when he went 1-2 in 2007.
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